Can I just surrender?
You are no doubt right and I will return to topical knob gags.
Newbie - any comments on my new sitcom idea? Page 2
Don't surrender sootyJ, embrace the concept. All story is exposition. It's how you work it that makes it better. What you don't like is bad exposition. So it's not the same thing. If you cut out eveything in your story that is not exposition it will honestly benefit. The trick is to make your audience not realise that it is expostion, they just seem to think it is a linear story, or a logical exchange of dialogue - later when the big reveals happen - all that has passed before will make sense in a new light. It's how you parcel up your story in building blocks of expostion that makes it work. Mister Moffat, for example, is a bit of master at it which is why his Who episodes are the best - because he has crafted them that way! Therefore he doesn't rely on a deus ex machina of a magic weapon at the end of his episodes, like some, to bring them to a satisfactory conclusion for the audience. All stories are a detective story at heart and the writer, the judicious writer, acts like a magician misdirecting but telling the truth at the same time. I shall now stop mixing my metaphors and mix a jigger of gin slings instead!
If I use the term "obvious exposition," is that any better. No exposition would lead to just random dialogue.
But in comedy particularly if you over explain and direct it removes the instinctive leap where most comedy lies.
In Life of Brian we know that this is the life of Christ, seen through the lense of 20th century experience and ordinary experience.
Much of the humour comes through our perceptions of the diference.
What it doesn't require is a narrator to say,
"Ooh that's bit a like Christ eh eh!"
I wish I had never commented now and just spelt another word wrong
Obvious exposition can be good too. Lol.
She's my daughter. (slap) She's my sister (slap) She's my daughter. (slap) She's my sister (slap) She's my sister and my daughter.
CHINATOWN
Nothing more obvious than the last bit of exposition but my goodness me it makes the story suddenly a whole lot more darker, and it throws a whole new light on what the audience thought, up until that point, was actually going on.
Bad exposition is a better word.
It's not really exposition it's a natural part of the dialogue is not?
He asks her a question that she answers in the only way conceivable.
Perhaps it's a bit more that I mean unatrual exposition.
e.g.
She's my duaghter and my sister.
You mean your father raped you got pregnant and then you gave birth to your own sister.
Well done that's completely right.
And you were worried he might also have sex with her? Possibly creating a grand daughter neice hybrid?
ASbsolutely you are perceptive.
Thanks isn't this a fabulous anology for the corrupt birth of modern Los Angeles?
Of course it is still exposition.
That's the art. That's the craft.
To convey expostion through 'natural' dialogue that has been worked on and edited etc etc, so that it couldn't be expressed any better or more seemingly natural.
It's all part and parcel of the same thing. It's what you work at. Bad expostion sounds like unnatural dialogue is what I think you are trying to say.
All narrative is exposition.
Indeed it is what I am trying to say.
It's more I suppose if one is ebing excessively obvious, unsubtle and predictable.
Meanwhile I hope this has been of help Happy Heiffer.
Could you two state exactly the same thing in each post for another couple of pages? I haven't quite got it yet! 
Was that bad expositinal dialogue or merely obvious?
I am revitalised! My obvious aim now is to not be an exponent of bad exposition in comedy! At least it got you talking! It's my first feedback so cheers everyone.