Corpsing: 02 (London)

To corpse

(from googling)

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verb THEATRICAL SLANG

spoil a piece of acting by forgetting one's lines or laughing uncontrollably.

"Peter just can't stop himself corpsing when he is on stage"

cause (an actor) to forget their lines and start laughing.

"one singer ad libbed and corpsed his colleagues on stage"

British English uses a slang term, corpsing, to specifically describe one of the most common ways of breaking character—when an actor loses their composure and laughs or giggles inappropriately during a scene. The British slang term is derived from an actor laughing when their character is supposed to be a corpse.

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We started doing classical Chinese in Year.2 on the undergraduate course at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).

    One of the texts was 史記 / 史记 / shǐjì / "history record" / Records of the Grand Historian (by 司馬遷 / 司马迁 / Sima Qian), taught by our beloved Mr. George Weys.  Being a historical text, completed c.104–91 BC, the contents are sombre, a lot of which focus on fighting for power, which is not a light subject at all.

    German classmate Robbie and I got on well from the start, so we'd sit together.

    Something happened one day in class (I can't remember what now, but it was a very minor thing) which set me and Robbie off giggling.  For the rest of the lesson, Robbie and I would start giggling all over again after subsiding, usually with one of us recalling the trigger and starting to giggle, which would then set the other one off.  During subsequent lessons, one of us would, out of the corner of the eye, catch sight of the other's body shaking in suppressed giggles, and that would get that person giggling as well.

    It got so bad that we decided to sit on opposite sides of the classroom, but then we'd happen to make eye contact across the room, and the corpsing would start all over again.

    For those of you who might not have been infected with the corpsing bug before, let me tell you that once it starts wriggling in your system, it's very hard to control it at the time -- and on subsequent occasions, time and time and again.  Long after you've forgotten what had started it.

(London, 1978–9)