Plays of the Two Major Ministries: “Let Them See We Are Happy!”

Abstract

This chapter investigates the oppositional history plays of the two ministries of John Major. As Major’s Government was a transitional one between Thatcher’s and Tony Blair’s, so too were the history plays of this period transitional and therefore did not offer the full-throated defiance of their predecessors. Pennino examines two plays by Tom Stoppard— Arcadia and Indian Ink —and argues that though they were not products of the heritage culture they were not politically revolutionary either. He further discusses the contemporary resonance of Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III . The chapter also includes Julian Mitchell’s Falling Over England and Stephen Jeffreys’s The Libertine .