city comedy

City comedy, also called Citizen Comedy, is a common genre of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline comedy on the London stage from the last years of the 16th century to the closing of the theaters in 1642. The recognition of city comedy as a distinct genre is chiefly indebted to English Renaissance academic Brian Gibbons and his book Jacobean City Comedy: A Study of Satiric Plays by Jonson, Marston and Middleton. Some usual meanings of the term include:

• Any English comedy, typically written during the reign of James I (1603–24) set in London and depicting ordinary London life.
• London comedies that are specifically satirical in nature, depicting London as a hotbed of vice and folly; in particular, some of the comedies of Ben Jonson (Epicoene), Thomas Middleton (A Trick to Catch the Old One, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside) and John Marston (The Dutch Courtesan').