British Political Theatre

Literary/ Cultural Context Note

Steve Barfield (University of Human Development, Suleymanyia, Iraqi Kurdistan)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Resources

[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. …

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 19 March 2024.]

1477 British Political Theatre 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.