Description
Book SynopsisNew paperback, with contextualising timeline and biographies, published in association with the Society for Theatre ResearchThis volume covers the 1950s, focusing on plays we know, plays we have forgotten, and plays which were silenced for ever, demonstrating the extent to which censorship shaped the theatre voices of this decade.
Trade Review. . . the book that I most eagerly awaited in 2011 . . .
Nicholson is a scholar who writes with lucidity, wit, humane intelligence and grace of mind. There is no jargon in his pages, but much glorious hilarity.
Nicholson's series ought to be mandatory reading for historians and biographers interested in twentieth-century England. [. . .] The quotations in this book are a gold mine for other writers.'
-- Richard Davenport-Hines * The Times Literary Supplement *
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: 'That Happy State'
1. Censorship in a Golden Age
2. 'Packed with Nancies': Homosexuality and the Stage (I)
3. Breaking the Rules, Breaking the Lord Chamberlain: Unlicensed Plays in the West End
4. Speaking the Unspoken: Homosexuality and the Stage (II)
5. Not Always on Top: The Lord Chamberlain's Office and the New Wave
6. Dirty Business: Sex, Religion and International Politics
7. The Tearing Down of Everything: Class, Politics and Aunt Edna
Afterword
Biographies of the principal people working for the Lord Chamberlain's Office
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
