Creating Vital Theatre: New Voices in a Time of Transition

The contradictions and faultlines embedded in the fabric of British society during the 1950s stimulated the development of the ‘new wave’ of British drama. Focusing on the years 1955-1960 this chapter considers the way this was enabled or constrained by dominant societal mores and institutional imperatives. I argue that the critical factors instrumental in retrospective canon formation have created a disproportionately limited perspective on what was achieved, in particular on the diversity of experimentation. The distinctive dramaturgical approaches of well-known figures such as Arnold Wesker, John Arden and Joan Littlewood will be explored both in relation to social realism and more radical anti-naturalistic strategies. But the chapter also highlights the way a new canon of 1950s’ drama is being constructed around the work of hitherto neglected black British playwrights such as Errol John and Barry Reckord who were the migrant products of the rapidly dissolving British empire.