Reflecting its decade's seismic social and political shifts, British theatre of the 1960s was a place of exciting and at times revolutionary change. New ideas about what theatre was, where it might take place and how it could be made encouraged challenges to cultural orthodoxy, assaults, on national icons รป including theatrical censorship itself-and the breaking of public taboos. In this major reassessment of playwriting from the period, Steve Nicholson explores how theatre-makers responded to the changes in society, how their legacy endures today and how critical consensus has changed over time. Beginning with a panoramic survey of life in the 1960s, and a detailed study of the theatre produced, the works of four significant and contrasting playwrights are then examined by different scholars: Edward Bond (by Steve Nicholson), John Arden (Bill McDonnell), Harold Pinter (Jamie Andrews) and Alan Ayckbourn (Frances Babbage). A series of interviews with the playwrights is followed by an appraisal of their work since the 1960s to round-off this major reassessment of playwriting from the period and the place of each writer in the narrative of modern British theatre. Methuen Drama's Decades of Modern British Playwriting series covers the 1950s, to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Each volume addresses the work of four representative dramatists by focusing on key plays and by placing them in a detailed contextual account of the theatrical, social, political and cultural climate of the era. The series as a whole offers a stimulating and comprehensive view of postwar British playwriting.
Book jacket.