PRESS RELEASE
Conversations on Culture #10
Sunday, 25 April, 2010
The tenth event in Sidestreets’ “Conversations on Culture” series in Kyrenia will be a presentation by Dr. Holger Briel on “Dinner for One and Humour Across Cultures.” The presentation will include a screening of the classic short film “Dinner for One” (“The 90th Birthday”) and a discussion by Dr. Briel.
The event (presentation and full Sunday luncheon) is scheduled for Sunday, 25 April at 12:00, at Onar Village in Kyrenia. The cost of admission is 30 TL, and seats should be reserved in advance at Sidestreets, Tel: 229-3070.
“Dinner for One” (The 90th Birthday/Der 90 Geburtstag) is a comedy sketch for the theater written in the 1920s by British author Lauri Wylie. Practically unknown in Britain, it has become a New Year’s Eve cult classic in Germany (where up to half the population watches it every year), the Nordic countries, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa, since the 18-minute film version (recorded in English) premiered on German television in 1963. Listed in the 1995 Guiness Book of Records as the most frequently repeated television program ever, “Dinner for One” has been the subject of a range of parodies, interpretations and cultural analyses.
Dr. Briel’s Sidestreets presentation will consider a range of questions in relation to “Dinner for One”: How does humor translate? What is so specific about British humor? What is its history and its perfomance? And why is it a big hit abroad? How does it differ from American humour? And German humour? What mechanisms are at work when a piece is received in a foreign country? And what role do the media play in this reception?
Holger Briel completed his studies at Eberhardt-Karls-Universität Tübingen, the University of Michigan, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Nicosia, and has published widely in the fields cultural studies, critical theory and visual communication. His books include “Intercultural Visual Literacy” (London: Sage, 2010) and “Glocal Media and the Balkans” (Skopje: Blesok, 2009).