Description
Book SynopsisAn exploration of radical political theatre in Britain from 1968 to present day.
Trade Review'This is an indispensable archive of resistant performance practice, combining memoir, dramatic and critical writing. Wiltshire, Cowan, and their collaborators confront Project Austerity's culture of contempt and despair by recovering and asserting British theatre's history of critical refusal' -- Victor Merriman, author of ' 'Because We are Poor': Irish Theatre in the 1990s'
'Believe that 1960s theatre making is dead duck pass? Reader, best start re-thinking. Editor/authors Kim Wiltshire and Billy Cowan forge an original and powerfully mind-bending take across 50 years of radicalised performing. Essential territory for driving future performance toward politicised hope' -- Baz Kershaw, Emeritus Professor of Theatre and Performance, University of Warwick
'Recommended' -- CHOICE
Table of ContentsIntroduction: A Very Brief History of Political Theatre in the
Twentieth Century up to 1968 - Kim Wiltshire and Billy Cowan
Prologue by Lyn Gardner
Scene 1: Agitprop and Political Theatre
Introduction - Kim Wiltshire
Interview with Rod Dixon (Red Ladder) and Kathleen McCreery (Red Ladder and Broadside Mobile Workers' Theatre) - Kim Wiltshire
Apartheid: The British Connection (Extract), Broadside Mobile Workers' Theatre - Kathleen McCreery
Contemporary Protest Theatre in South Africa - David Peimer
The Lost Art of Agitprop and the Return of Socialist Praxis - Rebecca Hillman
Scene 2: Working-Class Theatre
Introduction - Kim Wiltshire
Blood Red Roses at the Liverpool Everyman - Bob Eaton
Ways of Seeing: Class, Gender and the Universal, from Blood Red Roses to The Sum - Lizzie Nunnery
Plugging into History: Time Travel with John McGrath and 7: 84 - Lindsay Rodden
Scene 3: Theatre in Education
Introduction - Anthony Jackson
Farewell to Erin (Extract), Belgrade TIE Company
Interview with Tony Hughes (M6 Theatre Company) and Justine Themen (Belgrade TIE Company) - Billy Cowan
Everyone's Got a Story to Tell ... and Their Own Way of Telling It - Julia Samuels (20 Stories High)
Scene 4: Women's Theatre
Introduction - Kim Wiltshire
Interview with Sue Parrish (Sphinx) and Mica Nava (Women's Theatre Group) - Kim Wiltshire
Work To Role (Extract), Women's Theatre Group
The Work of Open Clasp and Why Women-centred Theatre is Still Relevant Today - Catrina McHugh (MBE) and Jill Heslop
Forty Years of Women-centred Theatre-Making - Anna Hermann with Kim Wiltshire
A Conversation on Sexual Assault in Theatre - Mighty Heart and Kim Wiltshire
Scene 5: Queer Theatre
Introduction - Billy Cowan
Men (Extract), Don Milligan and Nol Greig
Interview with Julie Parker (Drill Hall, 1981-2011) - Billy Cowan
Interview with Ruth McCarthy (Outburst Queer Arts Festival, Belfast) - Billy Cowan
We Who are Here Together: (Re-)making Queer Theatre - Chris Goode
Scene 6: Theatre and Race
Introduction - May Sumbwanyambe
A Tainted Dawn (Extract) - Sudha Bhuchar and Kristine Landon-Smith
The Personal is Always Political - Sudha Bhuchar
Pokfulam Road Productions: A Political Theatre Company? - Jingan Young
Epilogue: Where Next for Political Theatre? - Billy Cowan and Kim Wiltshire
Further Reading
Notes on Contributors
Index
