AustLit

This article investigates the extensive use of Great War material on the variety stage in Australia, particularly in the decade of the 1920s. It surveys jokes reported in newspapers or surviving in scripts; examines in detail the work of the best known of the ‘diggers’ companies of returned servicemen, Pat Hanna’s Famous Diggers, as well as the work of other performers including the acclaimed comedian Jim Gerald and several ex-soldier drag artists; and reports on the reasons these entertainers themselves gave to explain their use of comedy and pathos to represent traumatic events from their war experiences.