The concept of ‘the granny’ is not uncommon in British media texts, in a range of stereotyped representations of older women and in (sometimes playful, sometimes serious) invocations of the grandmother role. ‘Granny parties’ are one genre of recreational social event where young people dress up as grannies. This paper brings together data from the media and from an ethnographic study of granny parties in order to assess the age-political and ideological significance of ‘granny’ in these very different contexts. In both cases, representations and performances prove to be fashioned dialectically, in relation to normative assumptions about grannies as conservative, passive and out-dated characters. Despite the ludic frames of many representations, it is argued that the granny concept recycles restrictive ideological values for gendered ageing.