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Thatcher's Theatre British Theatre and Drama in the Eighties
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D. Keith Peacock
ISBN: 0-313-29901-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-29901-8
248 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 3/30/1999
List Price: $110.95 (UK Sterling Price: £76.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: The Thatcher administration of 1979 to 1990 had a profound and apparently lasting effect on British theatre and drama. It is now roughly a decade since the fall of Margaret Thatcher and, with the benefit of hindsight, it has become possible to disentangle fact from fantasy concerning her effect on the British theatre. During her administration, there was a significant cultural shift which affected drama in Britain. While some critics have argued that the theatre was simply affected by financial cutbacks in arts subsidies, this volume challenges that view. While it looks at the economic influence of Thatcher's policies, it also examines how her ideology shaped theatrical and dramatic discourse. It begins by defining Thatcherism and illustrating its cultural influence. It then examines the consequences of Thatcherite policies through the agency of the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Having established this political and cultural environment, the book considers in detail the effect of Thatcher's administration on the subject-matter and dramatic and theatrical discourse of left-wing drama and on the subsidized political theatre companies which proliferated during the 1970s. Attention is then given to the development of constituency theatres, such as Women's and Black Theatre, which assumed an oppositional cultural stance and, in some cases, attempted to develop characteristic theatrical and dramatic discourses. The penultimate chapter deals with the effect of Thatcherite economic policy and ideology on new writing and performance, while the final chapter draws conclusions and suggests that the cultural shift perpetrated by the Thatcher regime has altered the status of subsidized theatre from an agency of cultural, spiritual, social, or psychological welfare to an entertainment industry which is viewed as largely irrelevant to the workings of society.
Table of Contents:
  • Chronology: The Thatcher Years
    The Matter of Discourse
    Thatcherism
    Arts and Money
    The Response of the Left
    Looking East
    Carnivals of the Oppressed
    Defusing a Refusenik
    Women's Theatre
    So People Know We're Here: Black Theatre in Britain
    New Writing and Theatre in the Eighties
    Some Conclusions: The Legacy of Thatcher's Theatre
    Selected Bibliography
    Index
About the Author: D. KEITH PEACOCK is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Hull, where he specializes in modern British theatre. His articles have appeared in such journals as Modern Drama and Theatre Research International, and his books include Radical Stages (1991) and Harold Pinter and the New British Theatre (1997), both available from Greenwood Press.
LCC Class: 792
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