Censorship of British Drama 1900-1968 Volume 3: The Fifties

New paperback, with contextualising timeline and biographies, published in association with the Society for Theatre Research

This volume covers the 1950s, focusing on plays we know, plays we have forgotten, and plays which were silenced for ever, demonstrating the extent to which censorship shaped the theatre voices of this decade.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 294 pages
Publication date: 21 September 2020
Publisher: University of Exeter Press

This third volume in a groundbreaking paperback edition of Steve Nicholsons comprehensive four-volume analysis of British theatre censorship from 1900-1968, based on previously undocumented material in the Lord Chamberlains Correspondence Archives in the British Library and the Royal Archives at Windsor, delves into the profound impact of censorship on the theatrical voices of the decade. The book charts the early battles with Royal Court writers such as John Osborne and Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop, the standoffs with Samuel Beckett and leading American dramatists, the Lord Chamberlains steadfast determination to keep homosexuality off the stage, which turned him into a laughing stock when he was unable to prevent a private theatre club in London's West End from staging a series of American plays he had banned, including Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and the Lord Chamberlains attempts to persuade the government to grant him new powers and rewrite the law.

This new edition features a contextualizing timeline for those readers unfamiliar with the period, as well as a new preface.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47788/SEEA6021

Weight: 466g
Dimension: 157 x 233 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781905816422