State of the Nation: British Theatre since 1945

Description

Michael Billington's new book looks at post-war Britain from a theatrical perspective. It examines the constant interplay between theatre and society from the resurgent optimism of the Attlee years to the satire boom of the sixties and the growth of political theatre under Tony Blair in the post-Iraq period. Written by Britain's longest-serving theatre critic, the book also offers a passionate defence of the dramatist as the medium's key creative figure. Controversial, witty and informed, State of the Nation offers a fresh and challenging look at the vast upheavals that have taken place in Britain and its theatre in the course of sixty turbulent years.

Michael Billington has been theatre critic of the Guardian since 1971 and of Country Life since 1986. He is the author of biographies of Harold Pinter (newly revised in 2007) and Peggy Ashcroft, of critical studies of Tom Stoppard and Alan Ayckbourn, of a celebration of Ken Dodd and a collection of reviews, One Night Stands. He has also edited Directors' Shakespeare: Twelfth Night and Stage and Screen Lives selected from the Dictionary of National Biography.