Meaning of Ealing comedy | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A genre of English comedy film, typically populist and satirical about life in post-WWII British society.
   uncountable
2. A film in this genre.
   countable

Examples

“Ealing comedy is suddenly being regarded as the intellectual's treat.”

“What Michael Balcon described as the 'mild anarchy' (1969: 159) permeating Ealing comedy was, over the course of the decade, usurped by the moderate anarchy of the St Trinians and Carry On films.”

“The use of voice-over, characteristic of Ealing comedy, is also ironic.”

“Ealing comedy was a reaction against the sort of earnest fare the Ealing Studios themselves had produced in wartime.”

“This new film follows the pattern of an Ealing comedy, with escalating chaos and fantasy as the entire fabric of life collapses for the inhabitants of a Leningrad apartment block”

“OK, it's [The Ladykillers] an Ealing comedy so there's something very British and very genteel about it , which isn't particularly our thing.”

“Its finest moments are nevertheless as always the vignettes of tenderly observed British ordinariness: Wallace remarking 'Cracking piece of toast, Gromit' at the breakfast table, just like Stanley Holloway in an Ealing comedy”

CEFR level