Marie is a nobody, thirty-three, two kids, a husband who stays out a bit; a working-class woman cocooned inside her own enforced domesticity. Noe day she stops to have a think - nothing very special - but it ends up with her throwing her husband out. And so she is launched into the world, hopeful and trusting.

This production history of The Mother provides substantial new insights into Bertolt Brecht's theatre and drama, his impact on political theatre, and the relationship between text, performance, and politico-cultural context. As the only play which Brecht staged in the Weimar Republic, during his exile, and in the GDR, The Mother offers a unique opportunity to compare his theatrical practice in contrasting settings and at different points in his career. Through detailed analysis of original archival evidence, Bradley shows how Brecht became far more sensitive to his spectators' political views and cultural expectations, even making major tactical concessions in his 1951 production at the Berliner Ensemble. These compromises indicate that his 'mature' staging should not be regarded as definitive, for it was tailored to a unique and delicate situation. The Mother has appealed strongly to politically committed theatre practitioners both in and beyond Germany. By exploiting the text's generic hybridity and the interplay between Brecht's 'epic' and 'dramatic' elements, directors have interpreted it in radically different ways. So although Brecht's 1951 production stagnated into an affirmative GDR heritage piece, post-Brechtian directors have used The Mother to promote their own political and theatrical concerns, from anti-authoritarian theatre to reflections on the legacies of state Socialism. Their ideological and theatrical subversion have helped Brecht's text to outlive the political system that it came to uphold.

Discusses the importance of John McGrath's role in theatre, film and television in the last four decades of the 20th century.

This book, first published in 1980, is a comprehensive study of the radical theatre movement in Britain from 1968 to 1978. The essays are based on first-hand interviews, with each section being introduced with a summary of key events before detailing the artists under examination.

Written during the 1970s, John McGrath's winding, furious, innovative play tracks the economic history and exploitation of the Scottish Highlands from the post-Rebellion suppression of the clans to the story of the Clearances: in the nineteenth century, aristocratic landowners discovered the profitability of sheep farming, and forced a mass emigration of rural Highlanders, burning their houses in order to make way for the Cheviot sheep. The play follows the thread of capitalist and repressive exploitation through the estates of the stag-hunting landed gentry, to the 1970s rush for profit in the name of North Sea Oil. Described by the playwright as having a “ceilidh” format, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil draws on historical research alongside Gaelic song and the Scots' love of variety and popular entertainment to tell this epic story. A totally distinctive cultural and theatrical phenomenon, the play championed several new approaches to theatre, raising its profile as a means of political intervention; proposing a collective, democratic, collaborative approach to creating theatre; offering a language of performance accessible to working-class people; producing theatre in non-purpose-built theatre spaces; breaking down the barrier between audience and performers through interaction; and taking theatre to people who otherwise would not access it. The play received its premiere in 1973 by the agit-prop theatre group 7:84, of which John McGrath was founder and Artistic Director, and toured Scotland to great critical and audience acclaim.

This book provides an overview of the inception, development and achievements of British socialist and workers theatre – a feat which has not been attempted before. It explores the connections between politics and culture (specifically theatre) and between political theory and cultural (theatrical) expression. The book is organized chronologically and uncovers much in labour and theatre history which is in danger of being lost. It can also be seen as a way into different moments in its subject’s story (e.g. post-Ibsen naturalism; agitprop theatre; ‘fringe’ theatre of the 1970s) and the relationship of such forms to specific political events and ideas at specific points in history.

`one hell of a seminal read ... Here is a book that grapples, with energy, ingenuity and terrific intellectual rigour, with a bewildering forest of issues around gender and politics ... illuminating, insightful, perceptive.' - Women's Review

This series of three volumes provides a groundbreaking study of the work of many of the most innovative and important British theatre companies from 1965 to the present. Each volume provides a survey of the political and cultural context; an extensive survey of the variety of theatre companies from the period, and detailed case studies of six of the major companies drawing on the Arts Council Archives to trace the impact of funding on the work produced. 1965–1979, covers the period often accepted as the 'golden age' of British Fringe companies, looking at the birth of companies concerned with touring their work to an ever-expanding circuit of 'alternative' performance venues. Leading academics provide case studies of six of the most important companies, including: * CAST, by Bill McDonnell (University of Sheffield, UK) * The People Show, by Grant Tyler Peterson (Brunel University London, UK) * Portable Theatre, by Chris Megson (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) * Pip Simmons Theatre Group, by Kate Dorney (The Victoria and Albert Museum, UK) * Welfare State International, by Gillian Whitely (Loughborough University, UK) * 7:84 Theatre Companies, by David Pattie (University of Chester, UK).

Over 3,200 entries An essential guide to authors and their works that focuses on the general canon of British literature from the fifteenth century to the present. There is also some coverage of non-fiction such as biographies, memoirs, and science, as well as inclusion of major American and Commonwealth writers. This online-exclusive new edition adds 60,000 new words, including over 50 new entries dealing with authors who have risen to prominence in the last five years, as well as fully updating the entries that currently exist. Each entry provides details of a writer's nationality and birth/death dates, followed by a listing of their titles arranged chronologically by date of publication.