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:

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

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