The Project examines sitcoms written and performed by people with working-class backgrounds. For many years, class on television was felt, rather than acknowledged. This dissertation, however, examines how class re-emerges as a tangible theme in 2010s sitcoms which were both written and performed by creatives with working-class backgrounds. Contextual factors included industry-level pushes to diversify creative authorship (who gets to write and act); innovations in narrative form (how stories are told); and broader cultural movements centering marginalized experiences (what stories are about). Within this discursive space, self-representations of working-class individuals appear with a particular nuance and warmth, allowing counter representations to emerge. This project aims to critically attend to this space, investigate its inherent limitations and representational possibilities for depicting the working-class self in comedy.

Olivia Helmholz-Vero is a cultural studies scholar, first generation academic and doctoral candidate based in Vienna. In their dissertation, they examine contemporary British sitcoms written and performed by people with working-class backgrounds and the representational possibilities of working-class selves. From 2023 to 2026, they worked and taught at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Vienna and previous to that at the Centre for Teaching and School Research at Leipzig University. They hold a BA in English Studies (2019) and an MA in Global British Studies (2021) from Leipzig. Olivia received the German student scholarship of the Roland Berger Foundation (2016), the TANDEM-scholarship of the German University Foundation (2019) and the Krüger-Masterstipendium of the German University Foundation (2021). Outside of academia, they volunteer as an English instructor for the Roland Berger Foundation and perform stand-up comedy across Austria.