1956

Episode number 4 of Series “Changing stages”.
Fourth episode in the six-part series “Changing stages”, written and presented by Richard Eyre, about the history of theatre in the 20th century. In this program we travel back to Britain to a time when British theatre entertained in a fanciful, somewhat straight-laced puritanical manner, appealing to the middle and upper classes through wit and satire. A time during the 1920s and 1930s between the two wars when the audience did not want to be faced with reality and socio-political themes. However, playwrights Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan, through the Royal Court and Comedy Theatres (which were turned into clubs in order to present plays that were banned by the Official Censor, usually for their sexual connotations - homosexuality was considered a “dirty” word in those days), entertained and delighted audiences in the West End with plays such as “The Vortex”, “Private lives” (Coward) and “The Deep blue sea” and “Separate tables” (Rattigan). Rattigan’s plays characteristically expressed repressed emotions and hidden sexual desires smouldering beneath the surface whereas Coward was more out there, hamming it up in such a decadent way as to tease but not shock or disgust his audience. In contrast, following WWII the likes of Rodney Ackland (“The Pink room” 1952), John Osborne (“Look back in anger” 1956), Brendan Behan (“The Quare fellow” 1956) and Shelagh Delaney (“A Taste of honey” 1958) delivered reality and working class attitudes, sexuality and politics in raw and often confronting language taking British theatre in the 1950s on a revolutionary course. John Osborne, known as the “angry young man”, sparked off a whole generation of “angry young men” and a slew of social realist productions but it was the foresight and collaboration of people such as George Devine (Royal Court Theatre manager/producer) and Joan Littlewood (founder of the Theatre Workshop) who guided, supported and propelled the young British playwrights into the limelight and their plays on to the stage. Features excerpts and interviews with actors, playwrights, directors including Alan Bates, John Osborne, Arthur Miller, Peter Hall, Noel Coward, Harold Pinter, Vanessa Redgrave, John Gielgud, Rodney Ackland, Joan Littlewood, Brendan Behan, Tom Stoppard and others. Contains some b&w footage. For more information see www.pbs.org/wnet/changingstages.