The Irish of the Caribbean
Mentions of Barbados earlier reminded me of seeing Roy Williams' Kingston 14 at Stratford East, which was brilliant, and probably one of the most fun nights of theatre I had last year.
Half of the dialogue was in Jamaican patois, which I intellectually knew my dad understands, but didn't really *get* until I saw him not totally needing the surtitles on the screen over the stage (which were necessary for some, including me, and written tongue in cheek so they also added an extra layer of comedy to the proceedings). There was also, at our performance, a woman signing - nominally in BSL, but she was clearly including a lot of the vernacular patois, which was amazing to watch. There was a lot going on on stage - it was a bit hard to focus on the action at some points, but the energy levels of the actors were so high that it just about held together.
Anyway, my point is the sergeant (it was a cop show set in Jamaica) kept making these jokes that were along the lines of "An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman" but with Jamaicans, English, and Bajans. Bajans being cast in the "Irish" role. I've probably got the playtext somewhere, so I'll try and find an example. But I remember the audience finding them hilarious.
But it got me wondering about other different versions of stereotype-based jokes, how much they're actually specific to the nationalities they stereotype - or if there are essentially three "roles", or status levels if you're a wanky actor type, and you can cast them in any way really as there's probably some aspect of 'received stereotype' for each/any nation that can fit any role.
Although, it's been a seriously long time since I heard anyone tell an "Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman" joke in real life - and that's probably progress. Most of them are rubbish, at least slightly offensive, or both.
