Lynette Goddard

Catherine Hindson

Claire Cochrane

Trish Reid

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre and Performance provides a broad range of perspectives on the multiple models and examples of theatre, artists, enthusiasts, enablers and audiences that emerged over this formative hundred‐year period. This second volume covers the second half of the century, constructing an equitable and inclusive history that is more representative of the nation's lived experience than the traditional narrative of British theatre. Its approach is intra-national - weaving together the theatres and communities of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, as well as being thematic, breaking down its coverage into sections that address nation, power and identity; fixity and mobility; bodies in performance; theatre communities, and the materiality of theatre. This approach exposes the synergies, convergences and divergences of the theatre world in Britain during this period, giving a sense of the sheer variety of performance that was taking place at any given moment in time. This is a fascinating and indispensable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, postgraduate researchers and scholars across theatre and performance studies, cultural studies, and twentieth century history.

Volume Two: 1950–2000

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century British Theatre and Performance

Errol John wrote Moon on a Rainbow Shawl (1958) after becoming disillusioned about the lack of good roles for black actors on the British theatre scene. While this situation has only slightly improved since, his response has become the most revived black play in Britain, from its original production at the Royal Court in 1958, to the National Theatre in 2012. It depicts the lives of a black community living in poverty in a shared tenement yard in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in the mid-1940s, showing how each of the characters carries dreams of escaping to create better lives for themselves and their families. Lynette Goddard focuses on how the play articulates the narratives of migration that prompted many Caribbean people to uproot from their homes on the islands and move to the England in the post-war era. For some of them, these dreams of a new life became a reality, but they were experienced differently across genders and generations.

Errol John's Moon on a Rainbow Shawl

Staging Black Feminisms explores the development and principles of black British women's plays and performance since the late Twentieth century. Using contemporary performance theory to explore key themes, it offers close textual readings and production analysis of a range of plays, performance poetry and live art works by practitioners.

Identity, Politics, Performance

Staging Black Feminisms

Staging Black Feminisms explores the development and principles of black British women's plays and performance since the late Twentieth century. Using contemporary performance theory to explore key themes (such as migration, motherhood, sexuality, and mixed race identity), it offers close textual readings and production analysis of a range of plays, performance poetry and live art works by practitioners, including Patience Agbabi, Jackie Kay, Valerie Mason John, Winsome Pinnock, Jacqueline Rudet, Debbie Tucker Green, Dorothea Smartt, Su Andi, and Susan Lewis.

Lynette Goddard

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