This paper examines the politics of representation in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), Karel Reisz's notorious feature film. First, I discuss the critical contexts in which this film was produced and received. According to most British film critics the film represents a classic example of Swinging London films, a new film genre which emerged with the coming of age of a highly influential pop arts culture in the 1960s. This genre was regarded as indicative of a political regression as well as cultural decay because of its commercial and superficial representation. One of the main reasons why Swinging London films were unfavourably received by contemporary British film critics is that there had been an established tradition of kitchen-sink realism since the late 1950s, the political commitment of which was perceived as constituting British cinema's unique contribution to world cinema. Morgan, however, did not form part of the genre of Swinging London films such as Lewis Gilbert's Alfie (1966) and John Schlesinger's Darling (1965) despite its seemingly superficial film style. According to Reisz, the film was meant to be "a comedy about serious things." I regard this seriousness as marking a continuity in he A Comedy about Serious Things 81 political consciousness which dominated the kitchen-sink realism films in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, and attempt to ascertain how the comic style of the film structures its theme. My textual analysis of the film focuses on the representations of reality and fantasy, and how the gap between them increasingly widens, becoming unbridgeable, in the mind of the eponymous hero.