Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T19:36:49.897Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

27 - Drama and the new theatre companies

from PART FOUR - POST-WAR CULTURES, 1945–1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Trevor Griffiths
Edited by
Laura Marcus  and
Peter Nicholls
Laura Marcus
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Peter Nicholls
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Get access

Summary

For the most part the British theatre does not take into account the fact that we have had a World War since 1939, and that everything in the world has changed – values, ways of living, ideals, hopes and fears. As I see it, our theatre is far too often pre-war, safe and easy-going in what it offers, and lacking in the stimulation that will attract fresh audiences.

Thus, in 1955, the young Peter Hall voiced a widespread dissatisfaction with the state of British theatre. The post-war period has often been characterised as one of stagnation in British drama, redeemed by high-quality productions, with actors like Olivier, Gielgud and Richardson gracing the stage in revivals designed by Motley and photographed by Cecil Beaton. American musicals such as Oklahoma! and the plays of Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller had a raw power and theatricality that was lacking in British theatre writing, while Giraudoux and Anouilh offered a Gallic intellectual stimulation absent from the home-grown product. There is some truth in this aesthetic judgement but it ignores crucial economic factors: new work often fails to attract audiences because of fear of the unknown, lack of bankable stars or critical hostility to experimentation. Revivals, stars and imports all carry with them some guarantee against economic failure: what has succeeded before can be expected to succeed again.

In the immediate post-war period of economic austerity in order to pay for World War II and the implementation of the welfare state, the economic situation fuelled managerial conservatism: theatre capacity was limited due to wartime destruction; production costs had risen and were rising massively; and plays were staying in theatres longer.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature , pp. 494 - 509
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acheson, James and Huk, Romana. Contemporary British Poetry: Essays in Theory and Criticism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ali, Tariq and Watkins, Susan, 1968: Marching in the Streets (London: Bloomsbury, 1998), passim.Google Scholar
Allen, Paul. Alan Ayckbourn: Grinning at the Edge. London: Methuen, 2000.Google Scholar
Anand, M. R.Conversations in Bloomsbury. London: Wildwood House, 1981.Google Scholar
Anderson, Perry. ‘Components of the National Culture’, New Left Review, 50 (1968).Google Scholar
Archer, Robin, et al. Out of Apathy: Voices of the New Left Thirty Years On. London and New York: Verso, 1989.Google Scholar
Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights (Cambridge University Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Beauman, Sally. The Royal Shakespeare Company. Oxford University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Belbin, David, and Lucas, John, eds. Stanley Middleton at Eighty. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications, 1999.Google Scholar
Bergonzi, Bernard. Wartime and Aftermath: English Literature and Its Background, 1939–1960. Oxford University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Bignell, Jonathan, Lacey, Stephen and Macmurragh-Kavanagh, Madeleine, eds. British Television Drama: Past, Present and Future. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000.Google Scholar
Black, Kitty, Upper Circle (London: Methuen, 1984)Google Scholar
Blake, A., Ghandi, L. and Thomas, S.. England Through Colonial Eyes in Twentieth Century Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Booth, H. J., and Rigby, N., eds. Modernism and Empire. Manchester University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Bradbury, Malcolm, ed. The Novel Today. Glasgow: Fontana, 1977.Google Scholar
Brooke-Rose, Christine. Invisible Author: Last Essays. Columbus: Ohio State University, 1994.Google Scholar
Brunsdon, Charlotte, D’Acci, Julie and Spigel, Lynn, eds. Feminist Television Criticism: A Reader. Oxford University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Buhle, Paul. C. L. R. James: The Artist as Revolutionary. London: Verso, 1988.Google Scholar
Caughie, John. Television Drama: Realism, Modernism, and British Culture. Oxford University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chambers, Colin. The Story of Unity Theatre. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1989.Google Scholar
Chambers, Colin. Peggy: The Life of Margaret Ramsay, Play Agent. London: Nick Hern, 1997.Google Scholar
Chambers, Colins. The Story of Unity Theatre. London and New York: Lawrence & Wishart, 1989.Google Scholar
Cohen, R.Frontiers of Identity: The British and the Others. London: Longman, 1994.Google Scholar
Conekin, Becky E.‘The Autobiography of a Nation’: The 1951 Festival of Britain. (Manchester University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Conradi, Peter. Iris Murdoch: A Life. London: HarperCollins, 2001.Google Scholar
Cook, Judith, Priestley (London: Bloomsbury, 1997);Google Scholar
Corbett, John. Language and Scottish Literature. Edinburgh University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Corcoran, Neil. English Poetry Since 1940. London and New York: Longman, 1993.Google Scholar
Craig, Cairns, ed. The History of Scottish Literature. 4 vols. Vol. IV: The Twentieth CenturyAberdeen University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Crook, Tim. Radio Drama: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Crozier, Andrew. ‘Resting on Laurels’. In Davies, Alistair and Sinfield, Alan, eds., British Culture of the Postwar: An Introduction to Literature and Society, 1945–1999. London: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Crozier, Andrew. ‘Thrills and Frills: Poetry as Figures of Empirical Lyricism’. In Sinfield, Alan, ed., Society and Literature, 1945–1970. London: Methuen, 1983.Google Scholar
Dabydeen, David, ed. The Black Presence in English Literature. Manchester University Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Davie, Donald. Articulate Energy: An Enquiry into the Syntax of English Poetry. 1955; rpt. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1958.Google Scholar
Davie, Donald. Purity of Diction in English Verse. 1952 rpt. with postscript, London: Routledge, 1967.Google Scholar
Davie, Donald. Thomas Hardy and British Poetry. London: Routledge, 1973.Google Scholar
Davie, Donald. Under Briggflatts: A History of Poetry in Great Britain, 1960–1988. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Day-Lewis, Sean. Talk of Drama: Views of the Television Dramatist Now and Then. Luton: John Libbey Press, 1998.Google Scholar
de Jongh, Nicholas. Politics, Prudery and Perversions: The Censoring of the English Stage 1901–1968. London: Methuen, 2000.Google Scholar
Deane, Seamus. A Short History of Irish Literature. London: Hutchinson, 1986.Google Scholar
Dekker, George, ed. Donald Davie and the Responsibilities of Literature. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Dennis, F., and Khan, N., eds. Voices of the Crossing: The Impact on Britain of Writers From Asia, the Caribbean and Africa. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2000.Google Scholar
Dover, C.Feathers in the Arrow: An Approach for Coloured Writers and Readers. Bombay: Padma Publications, 1947.Google Scholar
Drakakis, John, ed. British Radio Drama. Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Duff, Charles. The Lost Summer: The Heyday of the West End Theatre. London: Nick Hern, 1995.Google Scholar
Duncan, Andrew. The Failure of Conservatism in Modern British Poetry. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2003.Google Scholar
Dyer, Geoff, ed. John Berger: Selected Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2001.Google Scholar
Easthope, Antony. Englishness and National Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S.Notes Toward the Definition of Culture. London: Faber & Faber, 1948.Google Scholar
Elsom, John, and Tomalin, Nicholas. The History of the National Theatre. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978.Google Scholar
Esslin, Martin, ‘Joe Orton: the Comedy of (I11) Manners’, in Bigsby, C. W. E., ed., Contemporary English Drama (London: Edward Arnold, 1981).Google Scholar
Esslin, Martin, Brecht: A Choice of Evils (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1959).Google Scholar
Fay, Stephen. Power Play: The Life and Times of Peter Hall. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995.Google Scholar
Findlater, Richard, ed., At The Royal Court (Charlbury: Amber Lane, 1981).Google Scholar
Forrest-Thomson, Veronica. Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry. Manchester University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Fryer, PeterStaying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Gasiorek, A.Post-War British Fiction: Realism and After. London: Edward Arnold, 1995.Google Scholar
Gaskill, William. A Sense of Direction. London: Faber & Faber, 1988.Google Scholar
George, R. M.The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction. Cambridge University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Giddings, Robert, and Selby, Keith. The Classic Serial on Television and Radio. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gikandi, SimonMaps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Gilroy, PaulThe Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso, 1993.Google Scholar
Goode, John. ‘Character in the Novel’. In Collected Essays. Keele University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Goorney, Howard. The Theatre Workshop Story. London: Eyre Methuen, 1981.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Trevor R., and Llewellyn-Jones, Margaret, eds. British and Irish Women Dramatists Since 1958. Buckingam: Open University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Trevor R. and Woddis, Carole, Theatre Guide, 2nd edn (London: Bloomsbury, 1991).Google Scholar
Guralnick, Elissa S.Sight Unseen: Beckett, Pinter, Stoppard and Other Contemporary Dramatists on Radio. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Halio, Jay, ed. British Novelists Since 1960. Vol. XIV Detroit: Gale Research, 1983.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart, and Whannel, Paddy. The Popular Arts. London: Hutchinson Educational, 1964.Google Scholar
Harris, W.Tradition, the Writer and Society. London: New Beacon, 1967.Google Scholar
Harrison, Charles. ‘England’s Climate’. In Towards a Modern Art World, ed. Allen, Brian. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Hatzioulou, Elizabeth. John Wain: Life and Work. Oxford: Pisces Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Hewison, Robert. Too Much: Art and Society in the Sixties. London: Methuen, 1986.Google Scholar
Higgin, Gurth. Symptoms of Tomorrow: Letters from a Sociologist on the Present State of Society. London: Plume Press/Ward Lock, 1973.Google Scholar
Higgins, John. Raymond Williams: Literature, Marxism and Cultural Materialism. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Hoggart, Richard. A Sort of Clowning: Life and Times 1940-1959. London: Chatto & Windus, 1990.Google Scholar
Hoggart, Richard. The Uses of Literacy. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957.Google Scholar
Huggett, Richard. Binkie Beaumont, Eminence Grise of the West End Theatre 1933–1973, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984.Google Scholar
Innes, C. L.A History of Black and Asian Writing in Britain, 1700-2000. Cambridge University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Innes, Christopher, Modern British Drama 1890–1990 (Cambridge University Press, 1992).Google Scholar
Jacobs, Jason. Intimate Screen: Early British Television. Oxford University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Nicholas, and Ohlsen, Prudence, eds., Bertolt Brecht in Britain. London: TQ Publications, 1977.Google Scholar
Johnson, Deborah. Iris Murdoch. Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Johnston, Dafydd. A Guide to Welsh Literature. 6 vols. Vol. VI: c. 1900-1996. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Joseph, Stephen. Theatre in the Round. London: Barrie & Rockliff, 1967.Google Scholar
Kenny, Michael. The First New Left: British Intellectuals After Stalin. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1995.Google Scholar
King, Bruce. The Oxford English Literary History. 13 vols. Vol. XIII: 1948–2000: The Internationalization of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Kirkland, Richard. Literature and Culture in Northern Ireland since 1965: Moments of Danger. London: Longman, 1996.Google Scholar
Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon, Trans. Hardy, Daphne. London: Jonathan Cape, 1940.Google Scholar
Lacey, Stephen, British Realist Theatre (London: Routledge, 1995), for important studies of this period.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lahr, J.Prick Up Your Ears. London: Penguin, 1980.Google Scholar
Lamming, George. The Pleasures of Exile. London: Michael Joseph, 1960.Google Scholar
Lee, A. R., ed. Other Britain: Other British. London: Pluto Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Lee, Jemima, Arts Council of England. For Whiting see Simon Trussler, The Plays of John Whiting: An Assessment (London: Victor Gollancz, 1972),Google Scholar
Leeming, Glenda, Poetic Drama (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989), pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewenstein, Oscar, Kicking against the Pricks (London: Nick Hern, 1994).Google Scholar
Lewis, Peter, ed. Radio Drama. London: Longman, 1981.Google Scholar
Lodge, David. The Novelist at the Crossroads. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971.Google Scholar
Lucas, John. Moderns and Contemporaries: Novelists, Poets, Critics. Hassocks: Harvester Press, 1985.Google Scholar
MacKenzie, Norman, ed. Conviction. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1958.Google Scholar
Marshall, Norman. The Other Theatre. London: John Lehmann, 1947.Google Scholar
Marwick, Arthur. British Society Since 1945. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982.Google Scholar
Maslen, Elizabeth. Doris Lessing. Plymouth: Northcote House, 1994.Google Scholar
Mathias, Roland. Anglo-Welsh Literature: An Illustrated History. Bridgend: Poetry Wales Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Merritt, Susan Hollis, Pinter in Play (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Millington, Bob, and Nelson, Robin. Boys from the Blackstuff: The Making of a Television Drama. London: Comedia, 1986.Google Scholar
Morrison, Blake. The Movement: English Poetry and Fiction of the 1950s. Oxford University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Mulhern, Francis. Culture/Metaculture. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.Google Scholar
Nadel, Ira. Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard. London: Methuen, 2002.Google Scholar
Nairn, Tom. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: New Left Books, 1977.Google Scholar
Nasta, SusheilaHome Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, R.TV Drama in Transition: Forms, Values and Cultural Change. London: Macmillan, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nixon, R.London Calling: V. S. Naipaul, Postcolonial Mandarin. Oxford University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Nuttall, Jeff. Bomb Culture. London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968.Google Scholar
O’Connor, Alan, ed. Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings. London: Routledge, 1989.Google Scholar
Osborne, John, A Better Class of Person (London: Faber & Faber, 1981).Google Scholar
Paget, Derek. No Other Way to Tell It: Dramadoc/Docudrama on Television. Manchester University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Paget, Derek. True Stories: Documentary Drama on Radio, Screen and Stage. Manchester University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Phillips, Mike, and Phillips, Trevor. Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain. London: HarperCollins, 1998.Google Scholar
Pick, John, The West End: Mismanagement and Snobbery (Eastbourne: Offord, 1983).Google Scholar
Pick, John. The State and The Arts. London: Offord, 1983.Google Scholar
Rebellato, Dan. 1956 and All That: The Making of Modern Drama. London: Routledge, 1999.Google Scholar
Rees, Roland, Fringe First (London: Oberon, 1992)Google Scholar
Riley, Denise. The Words of Selves: Identification, Solidarity, Irony. Stanford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Roberts, Philip. The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage. Cambridge University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodger, Ian. Radio Drama. London: Macmillan, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowell, George, and Jackson, Anthony. The Repertory Movement. Cambridge University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Said, E.Culture and Imperialism. London: Chatto & Windus, 1993.Google Scholar
Salmon, Eric, The Dark Journey: John Whiting as Dramatist (London: Barrie& Jenkins, 1979)Google Scholar
Samuel, Raphael ed. Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity. 3 vols. Vol. 1: History and Politics. London: Routledge, 1989.Google Scholar
Sandhu, S.London Calling. London: HarperCollins, 2003.Google Scholar
Saunders, Peter, The Mousetrap Story, [1992], privately printed. p.Google Scholar
Schmidt, Michael, and Lindop, Grevel, eds. British Poetry Since 1960: A Critical Survey. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Sebba, Anne, Enid Bagnold (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1986).Google Scholar
Self, David. Television Drama: An Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shellard, Dominic, Harold Hobson: Witness and Judge (Keele University Press, 1995), is the fullest account of Hobson’s career.Google Scholar
Shellard, Dominic. British Theatre Since the War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Shepherd, Simon, Because We’re Queers (London: GayMen’s Press, 1989)Google Scholar
Sinclair, Andrew. Arts and Cultures: The History of the Fifty Years of the Arts Council of Great Britain. London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1995.Google Scholar
Sinfield, Alan, ed. Society and Literature, 1945–70. London: Methuen, 1983.Google Scholar
Sinfield, Alan. Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.Google Scholar
Smith, Leslie, Modern British Farce (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. P.The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Steedman, Carolyn. Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives. London: Virago, 1986.Google Scholar
Stokes, Jane. On Screen Rivals: Cinema and Television in the United States and Britain. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, John Russell. Anger and After, rev. edn. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963.Google Scholar
Taylor, John Russell. The Second Wave: British Drama for the Seventies. London: Methuen, 1971.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. ‘The Peculiarity of the English’ (1965). In The Poverty of Theory and Other Essays. London: Merlin Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Trewin, J. C.Drama 1945–1950. London: Longmans Green/British Council, 1951.Google Scholar
Trotter, David. The Making of the Reader: Language and Subjectivity in Modern American, English, and Irish Poetry. London: Macmillan, 1984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trussler, Simon, The Plays of John Whiting: An Assessment (London: Victor Gollancz, 1972)Google Scholar
Tuma, Keith. Fishing by Obstinate Isles: Modern and Postmodern British Poetry and American Readers. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Turner, Adrian. Robert Bolt: Scenes from Two Lives. London: Hutchinson, 1998.Google Scholar
Tynan, Kathleen, The Life of Kenneth Tynan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), 117–18Google Scholar
Tynan, Kenneth. Tynan on Theatre, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.Google Scholar
Vahimagi, Tise. British Television: An Illustrated Guide, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press/British Film Institute, 1996.Google Scholar
Visram, Rozina. Asians in Britain: Four Hundred Years of History. London: Pluto Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Wain, John. Dear Shadows: Portraits from Memory. London: John Murray, 1986.Google Scholar
Walmsley, A.The Caribbean Artists’ Movement 1966–1972. London: New Beacon, 1992.Google Scholar
Wandor, Michelene, Look Backin Gender (London: Methuen, 1987),Google Scholar
Wansell, Geoffrey. Terence Rattigan. London: Fourth Estate, 1995.Google Scholar
Wardle, Irving. The Theatres of George Devine. London: Jonathan Cape, 1978.Google Scholar
Weatherhead, A. Kingsley. The British Dissonance: Essays on Ten Contemporary Poets. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1983.Google Scholar
White, Michael, Empty Seats (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984).Google Scholar
Whitehead, Kate. The Third Programme: A Literary History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Willett, John, Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects (London: Methuen, 1959),Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society 1780–1950. London: Chatto & Windus, 1958.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. The Long Revolution. London: Chatto & Windus, 1961.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond. ‘Working-Class Culture’, Universities and Left Review, 1, 2 (1957).Google Scholar
Williamson, Audrey, Contemporary Theatre (London: Rockliff, 1956).Google Scholar
Young, B. A., The Rattigan Version (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986).Google Scholar
Young, RobertPostcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×