State of the Nation - Hardcover

Billington, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571210341 ISBN 13: 9780571210343

Publisher: Faber, 2007

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

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 and Peggy Ashcroft, critical studies of Tom Stoppard and Alan Ayckbourn, of a celebration of Ken Dodd, a collection of reviews, One Night Stands, State of the Nation: British Theatre since 1945, which won the Theatre Book Prize 2008, and The 101 Greatest Plays: From Antiquity to the Present. He has also edited Directors' Shakespeare: Twelfth Night and Stage and Screen Lives selected from the Dictionary of National Biography.

He frequently lectures and broadcasts on the arts, teaches drama for the University of Pennsylvania and is a Visiting Professor at King's College, London and an Honorary Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Review:

Magisterial, informative and lively. Essential for anybody interested in theatre's recent history. The Times Billington is first-rate when it comes to spotting themes in the diverse work he has seen, and his book is an impressive monument to a professional life well spent. There is some superb critical analysis of individual plays with Billington finding fresh things to say and he's excellent, too, on the creation and shifting fortunes of the National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company. Daily Telegraph Billington has managed to produce a compelling narrative history of 60 years of British theatre which is a pleasure to read. The Economist Billington has produced an account of the theatre and of Britain which, like the art he rates most highly, does not only reflect on what happens, but may influence it too. Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0571210341
• ISBN 13: 9780571210343
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 416