British Political Theatre

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Steve Barfield (University of Human Development, Suleymanyia, Iraqi Kurdistan)

Ed. by Aleks Sierz, Independent Scholar - Europe
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

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Literature Topic
Theatre

Dates

Date of occurrence 1960

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

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[Preliminary entry] Theatre is the most public and thus, arguably, the most innately political of art forms. However, the term British political theatre refers a group of diverse, yet like-minded playwrights and theatre practitioners. These would include: Arnold Wesker; John Arden; Trevor Griffiths; (early) Howard Barker; Edward Bond; Howard Brenton; John McGrath and 7:84; David Hare; David Edgar; Caryl Churchill; Peter Barnes. They believed that plays could not only diagnose what was wrong with British society, but could promote radical social and political change. Their work dominated non-commercial, alternative British theatre between roughly 1960 to the mid-1980s, the period ending with the apogee of Thatcherism (1979-1990) in the United Kingdom, the defeat of the British miners. …

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250 words

Citation: Barfield, Steve. "British Political Theatre". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1477, accessed 21 November 2024.]

British Political Theatre

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