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:

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

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