end-of-the-pier

English

Etymology

A reference to the pleasure piers in British seaside resorts, which often featured music hall entertainment and were popular working-class holiday locations.

Adjective

end-of-the-pier (not comparable)

(UK, usually derogatory) Pertaining to a bawdy, old-fashioned style of broad comedy.
- 1999, Andrew Blaikie, Ageing and Popular Culture, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 156:
  Meanwhile, that butt of the end-of-the-pier comedian's joke, the mother-in-law as dictatorial hag, has become a figure associated with nostalgia for the days when workingmen's clubs were just that (and, indeed, marking a time when generations were forced to live cheek-by-jowl in the same household).
- 2002, Frieze: Contemporary Art and Culture:
  It seems a simple yes or no question, but actually compresses a complex group of ideas - about sexuality, gender, meaning and the figurative history of sculpture - into something you might expect from an end-of-the-pier comedy routine.
- 2009, Christopher Fowler, Paperboy, Random House, →ISBN, page 180:
  The production employed the John Barry Seven to re-work the songs of Gilbert & Sullivan, setting them against the dancing of Lionel Blair, with eye-rolling, end-of-the-pier jokes from Mike and Bernie Winters and Tommy Cooper.