Drama and the Media in Britain

Abstract

The renaissance of play-writing in Britain, usually dated from the opening in May 1956 of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, and the astonishing number of important dramatists it has brought to the fore, are among the most intriguing phenomena of the English-speaking world's recent cultural history. Undoubtedly the Education Act of 1945 was a contributing factor: it opened up the educational ladder for talented young people from social classes that had hitherto been barred from institutions of higher learning. But another, perhaps equally important, element that may have played a part in setting this "new wave" in motion was certainly the emergence of the electronic media, radio and television, and their availability as outlets for the production and diffusion of drama. By what was perhaps no more than an accident of history, Britain was spared, at least initially, the linkage between the mass media and advertising which has turned radio and television into cultural wastelands in the United States.