satire boom

The satire boom is a general term to describe the emergence of a generation of English satirical writers, journalists and performers at the end of the 1950s. The satire boom is often regarded as having begun with the first performance of Beyond the Fringe on 22 August 1960 and ending around December 1963 with the cancellation of the TV show That Was The Week That Was. The figures most closely identified with it are Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, David Frost, Bernard Levin and Richard Ingrams. Many of the figures who found initial celebrity through the satire boom went on to establish subsequently more serious careers as writers including Alan Bennett (drama), Jonathan Miller (polymathic), and Paul Foot (investigative journalism).