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

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