The After-Dinner Joke
Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts
First Staged:
Broadcast on BBC One, 1978

The After-Dinner Joke

By Caryl Churchill
Published in volume Caryl Churchill: Shorts

Caryl Churchill's short play The After-Dinner Joke is a satire on the charity business, written for television. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 14 February 1978 as part of the BBC's Play for Today series.

Told in 66 short, episodic scenes, the plot follows Selby, a young woman who quits her secretarial job in a big corporation to pursue her passion for 'doing good'. As a charity worker, she studiously avoids becoming embroiled in political issues, only to discover during the course of the action that this is impossible.

'There's something policitical about everything.'

Also by Caryl Churchill:

Caryl Churchill Plays: Three
A Number
Drunk Enough To Say I Love You?
This is a Chair
Blue Heart
The Skriker
A Mouthful of Birds
A Dream Play
Love and Information
Mad Forest
Seagulls
Here We Go
Escaped Alone
Cloud Nine
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire
Ding Dong the Wicked
Icecream
Abortive
Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp.
Hotel
Far Away
Caryl Churchill: Shorts
Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen
Thyestes
Lovesick
What If If Only
Three More Sleepless Nights
Pigs and Dogs
Bliss
Seven Jewish Children
Caryl Churchill Plays: Four
The Judge's Wife
Caryl Churchill Plays: Five
The Hospital at the Time of the Revolution
Three Short Plays
Hot Fudge
Schreber's Nervous Illness
Traps
Lives of the Great Poisoners
Beautiful Eyes
Air
Tickets are Now On Sale
War and Peace Gaza Piece

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