What's the difference between comedy and drama?

Comedy


Definition:

  • (n.) A dramatic composition, or representation of a bright and amusing character, based upon the foibles of individuals, the manners of society, or the ludicrous events or accidents of life; a play in which mirth predominates and the termination of the plot is happy; -- opposed to tragedy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A philosophy student at Sussex University, he was part of an improvised comedy sketch group and one skit required him to beatbox (making complex drum noises with your mouth).
  • (2) Corden, a big star in the UK since he made his name with BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey but still a relative unknown in the US, will succeed Craig Ferguson who will step down from the show after a decade.
  • (3) Gola, who gave his first stand-up turn in 2001, has watched comedy in South Africa go mainstream.
  • (4) In a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4 comedy Alun Cochrane's Fun House , Cochrane joked of how he sleeps better in the living room.
  • (5) Days and Nights in the Forest , which began as a comedy about Calcuttan gents on safari for aboriginal villagers, before shading into something almost too dark for my comprehension.
  • (6) Comic writing can be a brutal, unforgiving business, yet it can produce great and multi-layered prose, combining comedy, pathos and satire.
  • (7) Castin' makes me feel good: Ghostbusters' diverse team is a victory Read more Dan Aykroyd heralds Ghostbusters cast as 'most magnificent women in comedy' Read more “There’s three drafts of the old concept that exists,” said Aykroyd.
  • (8) The first UK comedy show I ever performed was a total mess.
  • (9) I think the heart of good comedy really lives in truth and reacting to the absurdities, hypocrisies, abuses of power in the world.” Late night television is a no longer a glass of warm milk before bed, it’s a lunch buffet And as TV viewership declines and internet virality becomes as important as real-time eyeballs, cable networks might find that topical comedy is a smart, cost-effective way to grab cross-platform attention.
  • (10) Despite his insistence that comedy should be colour-blind, Amos admits black audiences prefer the black circuit, where "you know the material isn't going to be racist or make you feel awkward, where you feel like you belong".
  • (11) That's in 1888; by 1890 the tone is of comic resignation (there is much comedy in these pages) as Edmond realises that he has devoted the whole of his life "to a special sort of literature: the sort that brings one trouble".
  • (12) He's broken limbs, nearly lost fingers and contracted a potentially deadly bone-marrow infection, as well as performing a string of excellent comedy shows retelling his exploits.
  • (13) Charlize Theron is set to star opposite Seth MacFarlane in the Ted creator's new comedy western A Million Ways to Die in the West, tipped as a homage to Mel Brooks's classic movie Blazing Saddles .
  • (14) The series is widely regarded as the first British sitcom, focusing on characters and situations over a single half-hour sketch, rather than stand-up comedy or variety which was then dominant in British radio.
  • (15) "I was at a comedy club trying to do my act, and I got heckled and I took it badly and went into a rage," Richards said.
  • (16) Fines’ best actor nod fell in the comedy movie category, which he shared with Michael Keaton in Birdman, Bill Murray in St. Vincent, Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice and Christoph Waltz in Big Eyes.
  • (17) His first film appearances had included Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Small Back Room, and the comedy Dear Mr Prohack (both 1949), the latter adapted from an Arnold Bennett novel.
  • (18) Between festivals, Hardee played cameo roles in TV comedies such as Blackadder and The Comic Strip, and ran his own comedy club, the Tunnel, which he had opened at the southern end of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1984; it acquired a fearsome reputation as a graveyard for aspiring standups.
  • (19) Archer, which Reed originally pitched to the FX channel as "James Bond meets Arrested Development" takes this premise – the comedy of displacement activity – and runs with it.
  • (20) 23 May More films to see in 2014 • 2014 preview: thrillers • 2014 preview: comedy • 2014 preview: Oscar hopefuls • 2014 preview: science fiction • 2014 preview: romance • 2014 preview: drama • This article was amended on Thursday 2 January 2014.

Drama


Definition:

  • (n.) A composition, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action, and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage.
  • (n.) A series of real events invested with a dramatic unity and interest.
  • (n.) Dramatic composition and the literature pertaining to or illustrating it; dramatic literature.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Peter retired in 1998, when he was appointed CBE for his services to drama.
  • (2) The dramas are part of the BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow's plans for her "unashamedly intelligent" channel over the coming months.
  • (3) Here's a certainty: When you play out your personal dramas, hurt and self-interest in the media, it's a confection.
  • (4) While ITV1's Harry Hill and the final series of BBC1's Gavin and Stacey will stay put, Sky1 did manage to secure US drama House, starring Hugh Laurie, from Channel Five, paying an estimated £500,000 an episode.
  • (5) There could be no faulting the atmosphere or the football drama.
  • (6) A Catholic boys’ school has reversed its permission to allow civil rights drama Freeheld, starring Julianne Moore and Ellen Page as a lesbian couple, to shoot on location in New York State.
  • (7) Mr Bae stars in a popular drama, Winter Sonata, a tale of rekindled puppy love that has left many Japanese women hankering for an age when their own men were as sensitive and attentive as the Korean actor.
  • (8) "We don't think British drama is failing because these things are so good – it just shows that other countries do good drama."
  • (9) Limits are a relief, because they concentrate the drama and free the writer from the torture of choice, as Aristotle knew when he advised playwrights to preserve "the unities" by telling one story in one place over a single day.
  • (10) George RR Martin , whose series of novels inspired the HBO drama , has woven a tapestry of extraordinary size and richness; and most of the threads he has used derive from the history of our own world.
  • (11) He'd later carry this over into Netflix's House Of Cards but before that, TV had already begun to emulate this new, bleak, antiheroic maturity with a cycle of dark, longform, acclaimed dramas, commencing with The Sopranos and culminating in Breaking Bad .
  • (12) The prime minister told the Radio Times he was a fan of the "brilliant" US musical drama Glee, preferred Friends to The West Wing, and chose Lady Gaga over Madonna, and Cheryl Cole over Simon Cowell.
  • (13) He knew his subject personally, having worked with him on the 1993 romantic drama Poetic Justice , in which the rapper starred opposite Janet Jackson.
  • (14) Phoenix will next be seen in James Gray's Lowlife, a historical drama about immigrants in 1900s New York.
  • (15) Ellen Page is to make her directorial debut with Miss Stevens, starring Anna Faris as a teacher chaperoning a mob of high school students to a state drama competition.
  • (16) The first episode of the gothic drama pulled in 6.1 million viewers on Easter Monday but that number dropped to only 4.5 million for the second episode, prompting fears that the audience numbers could decline even further for Wednesday's finale.
  • (17) This House , his witty political drama set in the whips' office of 1970s Westminster, transferred from the National's Cottesloe theatre to the Olivier, following critical acclaim.
  • (18) Whatever conclusion the crowd might have drawn, what's striking is that Tempest's poem couldn't be ignored: the conviction and drama of her performance forced a reaction and coloured the rest of the evening.
  • (19) (Personally, I think a perfect contemporary drama would highlight the quiet, fraught, human, ongoing battle between those who want to live life and those who want to live life electronically.
  • (20) Meanwhile he is preparing a new double piano concerto by Kevin Volans with the Labèque sisters for a concert at the Edinburgh festival next week, and he tells me with a glint in his eye about ideas for the next two seasons: concert performances of Don Giovanni this October, more Brahms symphonies, and more Berlioz – an ambitious plan to realise the gigantic drama of Roméo and Juliette on a chamber-orchestral scale, following up his rapturously received performances of L'Enfance du Christ in February.