A Stern Necessity for Laughter: The Paradoxical Drama of Sam Fitton

This article analyses three plays by the Lancashire working-class writer Sam Fitton (1860–1923) arguing that they are best understood as an extended dramatic experiment in which the conventions of melodrama and farce, inherited from the Victorian stage, are tested against the realities of everyday working-class life. It considers Fitton's plays in relation to the representations of working-class life offered by both Victorian dramatists and those of the ‘Manchester School’. It traces Fitton's career as a performer before offering extended analyses of his handling of the interplay of the politics of class, gender, and age in working-class life in three plays; Jeremiah Flint (melodrama), The Buckleys (comedy), Mugs (a one-act play). It argues that Fitton's drama anticipates aspects of a number of late-twentieth-century situation comedies dealing with working-class life.