Read the passage and put a suitable word in each of the gaps.
end only silent famous
world like century number
The advent of cinema in the late 19 th (1) , and later radio and television in the 20 th century
broadened the access of comedians to the general public. Charlie Chaplin, through (2)
film, became one of the best known faces over the (3) . The silent tradition lived on well into
the 20 th century through my artists like Marcel Marceau, and the physical comedy artists (4)
Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean. The tradition of the circus clown also continued, with such as Bozo the
Clown in the United States and Oleg Popov in Russia.
Radio provided new possibilities - with Britain producing the influential Goon Show after the Second
World War. American cinema has produced a great (5) of globally renowned comedy
artists, from Laurel and Hardy, the Three Stooges, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, as
well as Bob Hope during the mid-20th century, to performers like George Carlin, Robin Williams, and
Eddie Murphy at the (6) of the century. Hollywood attracted many international talents like the
British comics Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen, Canadian comics Dan Aykroyd, Jim
Carrey, and Mike Myers, and the Australian comedian Paul Hogan, (7) for Crocodile Dundee.
Other centers of creative comic activity have been the cinema of Hong Kong, Bollywood, and French farce.
American television has also been an influential force in world comedy: with American series like
M*A*S*H, Seinfeld and The Simpsons achieving large followings around the world. British television
comedy also remains influential with quintessential works including Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Dad's
Army, Blackadder, and The Office. Australian satirist Barry Humphries, whose comic creations include the
housewife and "gigastar" Dame Edna Everage, for his delivery of Dadaist and absurdist humor to millions,
was described by biographer Anne Pender in 2010 as not (8) ''the most significant theatrical
figure of our time ... [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin''.