Kate Dorney offers a fresh perspective on the history of post-war English theatre by examining the ways in which the practice and criticism of theatre interact with contemporary understandings of language between 1945 and 2008. From Noel Coward to Sarah Kane and J.B Priestley to Harold Pinter it considers attitudes to, and the reception and construction of, language in English theatre and the social, cultural, intellectual and artistic implications of these practices. Synthesising and supplementing existing work in theatre and cultural studies as well as in stylistics, The Changing Language of Modern English Drama considers the ways in which anxieties about, and attitudes toward, language manifest themselves in discourses on and around theatre of the period. Beginning with an examination of popular notions of communication and communication breakdown, the book proceeds to examine the anxieties induced by changing linguistic styles in the post-war period by contextualizing the historical and linguistic context of key theatrical events and practitioners.