EN926 The British Dramatist in Society Since 1965

Term 1 2024-25
Convenor: Dr. Matt Franks
Seminar schedule: Tuesdays, 15.00-17.00, R2.41

This module examines the work of a number of leading British playwrights from the period of Wilson and the permissive society to the present day, via the rise of Thatcher and the end of Empire. There will be a focus on modes of historical and documentary drama, taking in new work at theatres in the region. We shall examine plays and consider the relationship between social change and developments in dramatic form as well as content. The plays explore new definitions of sanity and madness; the relationship between class, the family, and the individual; the appropriation of myth; the rewriting of history; and shifting concepts of culture, whether Marxist, feminist, postmodern, or postcolonial. Seminars will focus on the development of one playwright’s work and social thinking, or on one political/ethical issue and several dramatists’ response to it. It is hoped that the texts will emerge as elements in a set of evolving national debates.

All of the text, video, and audio materials can be found on Talis Aspire.

Teaching is seminar-based, with weekly 2-hour sessions. The module will be assessed by a 6,000 word essay. You can find more information about essays here: Assessments.

Students will give seminar introductions. These may form the basis of the essays.

SYLLABUS

I. Origins

Week 1: The Angries

John Osborne, Look Back in Anger (1956)
Shelagh Delaney, A Taste of Honey (1958)

II. Dramatists

Week 2: Orton

Joe Orton, Loot (1965)
Joe Orton, What the Butler Saw (1969)

Week 3: Pinter

Harold Pinter, The Homecoming (1965)
Harold Pinter, Betrayal (1978)

Week 4: Bond

Edward Bond, Saved (1965)
Edward Bond, At The Inland Sea (1995)

Week 5: Churchill

Caryl Churchill, Top Girls (1982)
Caryl Churchill, Escaped Alone (2016)

Week 6: Pinnock

Winsome Pinnock, Leave Taking (1987)
Winsome Pinnock, Rockets and Blue Lights (2020)

III. British Society

Week 7: Events

debbie tucker green, random (2008)
Alecky Blythe, London Road (2011)

Week 8: Nations

John McGrath, The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973)
Brian Friel, Translations (1980)

Week 9: Citizenship

Kwame Kwei-Armah, Let There Be Love (2008)
David Edgar, Testing the Echo (2008)

Week 10: Subjectivities

Ella Hickson, The Writer (2018)
Arinzé Kene, Misty (2018)