Introduction Post War West End Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop The Explosion of New Writing  The Royal Court Theatre 20th Century Shakespeare  The Royal Shakespeare Company Peter Brook and Peter Hall The National Theatre Alternative Theatre Physical and Visual Theatre ‘In Yer Face’ Theatre

Look Back in Anger

In 1956 John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court Theatre heralded a new era in British theatre.

This ‘love across the class divide’ story set against the dingy backdrop of a bed-sit caused a huge outcry. The protagonist angry young man, Jimmy Porter, raging against the modern world from a run-down flat in a Midlands town, voiced the frustrations of post war youth, whose dreams of a better life had not been realised.

Look Back in Anger

Osborne succeeded in capturing the mood of the times. Jimmy Porter represented a generation who had benefited from a free education only to have their expectations of a better life crushed by a still largely class driven society.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

The Birthday Party

Osborne succeeded in creating a landmark in 20th century theatre which heralded an explosion in new writing. Other writers of this generation included Harold Pinter, Edward Bond, Arnold Wesker, Joe Orton and later Tom Stoppard, Trevor Griffiths, and Caryl Churchill.

Plenty

Plenty

In the 1960s and 1970s new writing flourished in young companies such as Joint Stock and Portable Theatre which produced the work of young political writers John McGrath, David Edgar, Trevor Griffiths, David Hare and Howard Brenton. Other writers such as Alan Ayckbourn (based at Scarborough’s Theatre in the Round) emerged from the regional rep theatres.