This book examines the most vital, varied and innovative period of English dramatic writing since Shakespeare and the Renaissance. It considers the major dramatists of this period, including Beckett, Pinter, Osborne, Wesker, Bond, Churchill, Barker, Cartwright and Kane.

English Drama Since 1940 considers the bids of successive post-war dramatists to find language and images which interrogate conventional relationships between power, sexuality and morality.  It shows how experimental British Drama has purposefully sought to be an art form through which private feelings can be expressed so as to have public consequences, and through which fictional physical confrontations can have personal repercussions for those who witness challenging events. It also notes how not only English but also Irish, Welsh and Scottish dramatists have sought critical dialogue with the dominant English terms of definition.

This book introduces the period and its discourses whilst redefining them, to give proper consideration to developments of themes, styles, concerns and contexts from the 80s to the present.  The book offers succinct and analytical introductions to the works of over 60 dramatists, whilst arguing for reappraisal of many dated critical perspectives, in order to stimulate further argument in the field.

DAVID IAN RABEY is Reader in Drama and Subject Leader of Theatre Studies at The University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His publications include British and Irish Political drama in the Twentieth Century (1986), Howard Barker: Politics and Desire (1989) and David Rudkin: Sacred Disobedience (1997). He is also a director, performer and dramatist.