IV SELICUP Conference – Past, Present and Future of Popular Culture
ABSTRACT
Dr Mark E. Casey
Newcastle University, UK.
Email: M.E.Casey@ncl.ac.uk
The Working Class on Holiday: British Comedy in Benidorm
The ITV show of ‘Benidorm’ has as its focus a number of fictitious British tourists staying at
the ‘Solanas Hotel’ in the Spanish resort of Benidorm. The British love affair with the
Spanish coast since the 1950s has been well documented (Bray and Raitz, 2001, O’Reilly,
2000). However the arrival of this successful television comedy onto British screens in 2007
has given a new visibility to the resort of Benidorm and for the working class on holiday.
This paper through focusing upon the characters within the show and the resort itself will ask;
who is presented as the ‘other’ within this television show? And who or what are we really
laughing at? The show includes diverse key characters - from the ‘traditional’ white
heterosexual working class British family, a gay couple, a retired (but highly sexually active)
couple, a heterosexual middle class couple (accidently staying at the hotel) and of course the
Spanish employees themselves. This collection of characters presents to the viewer multiple
images and ways of ‘doing holidays’ through the mixed needs and experiences of characters
present. The paper will argue that the viewer is encouraged to engage with ideas around
social class, laughing at both the white heterosexual working class family and the middle
class heterosexual couple who are positioned as out of place and time, where they are both
visible and funny through their ignorance and politically correct motivations. The paper will
conclude by asking what shifts in UK popular culture and in tourism does Benidorm represent?
And what is the future of the white working class and their mass holidaying experiences?
Bray, R. & Raitz, V. (2001) Flight to the Sun. London. Continuum.
O’Reilly, K. (2000) The British on the Costa del Sol. London: Routledge.
Word count: 299
Bio Note:
Mark Casey is a lecturer in Sociology at Newcastle University (UK) where he teaches, writes
and researchers in the areas of tourism, sexuality and gender. He has recently published in the
area of gay male travel in Australia, in the journal Leisure Studies, (2009) ‘Tourist Gay(ze) or
Transnational Sex. Vol.28(2) and his chapter, ‘Even Low Income Gay Men Travel’, is in
Taylor, Y. (ed) (2010) Classed Intersections. He is currently writing on the subject of low
cost air travel and social class in the North East of England and Spain.