Theatre In Britain Research Articles

Voluntarism and the Single Channel: the Development of Single-Channel Worker Representation in the UK

Abstract: As a contribution to the debate on the possibility of an end to single-channel worker representation in the UK, this paper seeks to explain the persistence of single-channel representation in Britain throughout the twentieth century. It explores the meaning of the term ‘single channel’ generally, and in the British context, and examines the possibility of a causal relationship between the voluntarist approach to the regulation of industrial relations and the persistence of single-channel representation. The focus of the paper is on the Second World War and its aftermath, and the decision of the post-war government not to legislate to institute workplace representation across the board.

Continuity or Change in Business Representation in Britain? An Assessment of the Heseltine Initiatives of the 1990s

Britain has a fragmented, overlapping, and underresourced system of business representation. Attempts at reform, however, have proved difficult and largely unsuccessful. A coherent and logical system is relevant, in terms of both an effective dialogue between government and business, and the promotion of competitiveness and productivity. Through interviews and archival evidence, I look at how government has attempted to reform business associations. The main focus is the Heseltine initiatives of the 1990s: I outline the various initiatives taken, reveal the extent to which policy represented continuity or change, and consider whether the initiatives were effective. I show that they had a degree of success but that they would have made greater impact if they had been sustained over a longer period of time. A consideration of the historical context, moreover, suggests there may be limits to the role of government intervention in business association reform.

Sapphism and Sedition: Producing Female Homosexuality in Great War Britain

Sapphism and Sedition:Producing Female Homosexuality in Great War Britain Deborah Cohler (bio) In early 1918, as British military forces were in retreat and the country expected humiliating military defeat at the hands of Germany, two events simultaneously raised rhetorical concern over female sexual representation in Britain. In one instance, a novel by pacifist Rose Allatini was quickly and relatively quietly banned under the Defense of the Realm Act. Written under the pseudonym "A. T. Fitzroy," Despised and Rejected recounts the wartime trials of a female homosexual and a pacifist homosexual man. The other event was the far more notorious "trial of the century" in which well-known dancer Maud Allan sued Member of Parliament Noel Pemberton Billing for libel. Allan's attorney claimed that an article in Billing's newspaper headlined "The Cult of the Clitoris" implied that Allan was a lesbian. Spurred by wartime concerns over British masculinity, these two representational and juridical stories together map rapidly transforming relations of gender to sexuality in emergent early-twentieth-century constructions of homosexuality. By reading Despised and Rejected and Maud Allan's trial together and in the context of the Great War's home front, this essay argues that twentieth-century lesbian representations were produced not only through the medical discourse of late-nineteenth-century sexology and female homosocial traditions, as much of modern scholarship has discussed, but also through discourses of xenophobic nationalism and ideological affiliations with homosexual male figures during World War I. Critical attention to [End Page 68] the intersections of xenophobia, nationalism, and home front homophobia illustrate the intractable relation of the emergence of British lesbian identity to the politics of the nation. It is not simply that discourses of wartime nationalism created the conditions for the interwar emergence of a coherent lesbian subject but also that the cultural anxiety surrounding sexual deviance in turn shaped ideas of the nation itself through debates over women's citizenship, roles, and desires. This essay seeks to draw together work in the history of sexuality and on women's early-twentieth-century cultural productions with studies of the gendered politics of the Great War. Current scholarship in the history of sexuality generally plots the emergence of lesbian identities in the West a generation after that of male homosexuality. Laura Doan and others have suggested that the obscenity trials of Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness may be analogous to Oscar Wilde's 1895 trials as a benchmark of a newly visible and culturally coherent homosexual identity. Doan writes: "The highly publicized obscenity trial of Hall's novel, which is generally recognized as the crystallizing moment in the construction of a visible modern English lesbian subculture, marks a great divide between innocence and deviance, private and public, New Woman and Modern Lesbian."1 Doan artfully maps the emergence of this "visible modern English lesbian subculture" in the 1920s through detailed attention to literature, legal texts, sexology, and fashion, focusing specifically on their interwar representational impacts. This essay seeks to parse a slightly earlier literary, juridical, and cultural moment in the 1910s that, in an important way, enabled the more legible cultural transformations of the 1920s.2 Literary critics such as Angela K. Smith and Claire M. Tylee focus specifically on the impact of women's war writings on the emergence of modernism and the transformation of gender ideologies.3 Work on the gendered politics of the Great War itself, such as the excellent work of historian Nicoletta Gullace, illustrates the gendered renegotiation of citizenship during the Great [End Page 69] War.4 Whereas work in the history of sexuality often takes the category of Englishness for granted or as a stable backdrop against which lesbian identity emerges, and whereas work on the gendered politics of the Great War's home front may elide the politics of women's sexual deviance, it is essential to illustrate the mutually constitutive and rapidly changing discourses of women's sexual and national roles on the home front. Representations of female homosexuality changed qualitatively during the Great War. In the prewar period, while female homoerotic relationships existed, British culture lacked any coherent narrative of female homosexual identity. Indeed, such a publicly legible...

Representations of Britain and British Colonialism in French Adventure Fiction, 1870–1914

Recent scholarship has rediscovered the plural manifestations of a colonial culture in France, emerging after 1870 and reaching its apogee in the early 1930s. The period between 1870 and 1914, when France was undergoing rapid modernisation and was fully engaged in the process of consolidating its distinct national identity, constitutes the richest period for the impregnation of French society by this culture. This article reveals how images of British colonialism contrasted with representations of French colonial practice across a number of examples of popular adventure novels written between 1867 and 1903 by contemporaries and imitators of Jules Verne: Alfred Assollant, Paul d'Ivoi and Colonel Driant.

The Lord Chamberlain regrets ...: a history of British theatre censorship

Between 1824 and 1968, British theatre was controlled by censorship. Under the dictate of the Lord Chamberlain's Office, all new plays were read for unfavourable or corrupting content with the intention of protecting the 'vulnerable' audiences of the time. Such material was either instructed to be cut or the play to be banned. The effect that censorship may have had on the plays that came out of this period, not to mention the ones that never even got written, is crucial to our understanding of the history and development of theatre in Britain. Remarkably, a wealth of written material survives and is held at the British Library. Revealed here for the first time are a selection of extensive extracts from key reports, correspondence and memoranda about some of the most significant plays of the period. Many documents are reproduced in their entirety, allowing the reader direct access to original, unpublished and unedited archive material. The authors contextualize this material within the political and moral issues of the time, and reveal the fascinating processes and debates that occurred in and around the Lord Chamberlain's office.

Genealogies, archaeologies, histories: the revolutionary ‘interculturalism’ of Asian theatre in Britain

This article traces a genealogy of British-Asian theatre locating it within the practice of interculturalism. Tracing the very recent origins of a revolutionary and hybrid theatre form, it is archaeologically excavated to reveal the political and aesthetic strategies it deploys in its commitment to its form which may be said, often, to be a becoming-in-difference: a dis-play of a happy marriage rather than a confrontation of western and eastern artistic practices.

Second-Class Representatives? Mixed-Member Proportional Representation in Britain

This article compares the constituency roles of the members of the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales to their counterparts in two German federal states using postal survey data and interviews. Representatives elected in single-member constituencies spend more time than their list-elected counterparts on constituency service, believing it to be important to their re-election effort, while list-elected representatives focus more strongly on interest groups. Competition between constituency and list representatives in Britain has caused more problems than in Germany. The results suggest that rational-choice considerations motivate the behaviour of politicians, and that the mixed-member electoral system contributes to role differentiation.

Devolution and the Politics of Business Representation in Britain: A Strategic — Relational Approach

In this paper we seek to exploit some of the insights of a strategic - relational approach in examining the response of business interests to the newly devolved and regionalised governance context in Britain. In the analysis, the focus is directed particularly at the changing context within which business politics operates in the British regions and, importantly, on the perceptions of business actors and interests of their position in these changing contexts. In this way, we seek to move beyond established structuralist and agency-oriented approaches to business interest representation, which have tended to underplay the influence and complexity of business perceptions in exploring the changing form of business representation. Subsequently, we present some further brief comments on the respective capacities of groups and organisations representing business, and the strategic processes that underlie business responses to the new governance arrangements, which will be important to the further development of analysis founded in the strategic - relational approach. In broad terms, we argue that business perceptions of the devolutionary context have underscored a limited restructuring of business interest representation in Britain, as business groups register the ongoing centralism that characterises the British polity. In addition, the organisation of business interest representation displays a strong path dependency, reflecting a degree of institutional stasis and the strength of perceived structures in this sphere. However, a series of relatively modest changes are underway as a variety of business interests adopt particular kinds of strategies given their specific aims and capacities.

Britannia : Grandeur et infortune d’une allégorie nationale dans l’univers du cartoon britannique 1842-1999

Britannia, sometimes accompanied by the emblematic British Lion, has long been personifying justice, liberty, and the British Empire on coins and stamps as well as in graphic satire. Originally of Roman origin, she became the visual representation of Britain after being revived in the sixteenth century. This article is based on the analysis of over four hundred cartoons featuring this symbol. It argues that between 1860 and the 1950s, Britannia striking a solemn pose, that of the Graeco-Roman goddess created by Tenniel, exalted Victorian greatness and the early twentieth century great power twice victorious in the World Wars. On the other hand, since the inter-war years, Low and his followers had been challenging this supposedly immutable image. They turned her into a definitely helpless and obsolete symbol whose identity was sometimes usurped by such anti-heroes as Colonel Blimp. Finally, from the 1960s, in a context of continuous British decline and growing permissiveness, cartoonists increasingly followed the example of the old masters of 18th century caricature and early Punch cartoonists, even though aggressiveness and vulgarity have remained much less explicit.

Union effects on pay levels in Britain

The contraction of union representation in Britain raises the question of whether or not unions still achieve a wage premium. Analysis of matched employer–employee data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey shows that there is now no demonstrable premium for private sector workers in general. However, unions do achieve a wage premium of around 9% for about half of employees covered by collective bargaining arrangements. The effect of union bargaining spills over to other employees in the same workplaces. The paper identifies circumstances where union effects are strongest—employer endorsement of union membership, high collective bargaining coverage and multi-unionism.

Conversations with Wole Soyinka

Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka is the most prominent writer from the African continent and one of the greatest living playwrights in the English language. His plays have been produced by the leading professional and repertory companies and stages in the English-speaking world including the National Theatre in Britain and the Lincoln Center in New York. At the same time, Soyinka has been the most consistent campaigner against civil and human rights violations and abuses, on occasion using his drama, poetry, and essays to speak out powerfully and eloquently in defense of the freedom of ordinary citizens and of the conscience and autonomy of the African continent's writers and intellectuals. Featuring interviews with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Anthony Appiah, and the editor, among others, Conversations with Wole Soyinka is the first collection of Soyinka's interviews. The volume helps to clarify the place of Soyinka in the canon of modern African literature and the international currents of world literature in English of the last half century. Within the interviews, Soyinka is forthright, clear, and eloquent. He specifically addresses many facets of his writing and plumbs pressing issues of culture, society, and community in the present period of increasing globalization. With interviewers in Africa, America, and the United Kingdom he discusses the rise of extreme nationalist and fundamentalist movements and ideologies in his homeland. In particular, the volume throws welcome light on many of the difficulties and obscurities of form and message that both academic and non-academic readers find in the most ambitious works of Soyinka. Soyinka says, I never set out to be obscure. But complex subjects sometimes elicit from the writer complex treatments. Biodun Jeyifo is a professor of English at Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY. His previous books include The Popular Traveling Theatre of Nigeria (1984) and The Truthful Lie (1985). He has been published in such periodicals as Stanford Literature Review, Research in African Literatures, and Callaloo.

The African-Caribbean Identity and the English Stage

In the first of two essays employing academic discourses of cultural exchange to examine the intra-cultural situation in contemporary British society, published in NTQ 61, Barnaby King analyzed the relationship between Asian arts and mainstream arts in Britain on both a professional and a community level. In this second essay he takes a similar approach towards African–Caribbean theatre in Britain, comparing the Black theatre initiatives of the regional theatres with the experiences of theatre workers themselves based in Black communities. He shows how work which relates to a specific ‘other’ culture has to struggle to get funding, while work which brings Black Arts into a mainstream ‘multicultural’ programme has fewer problems. In the process, he specifically qualifies the claim that the West Yorkshire Playhouse provides for Black communities as well as many others, while exploring the alternative, community-based projects of ‘Culturebox’, based in the deprived Chapeltown district of Leeds. Barnaby King is a theatre practitioner based in Leeds, who completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds Workshop Theatre in 1998. He is now working with theatre companies and small-scale venues – currently the Blah Blah Blah company and the Studio Theatre at Leeds Metropolitan University – to develop community participation in

Landscapes of Fact and Fiction: Asian Theatre Arts in Britain

In the first of two essays which use academic discourses of cultural exchange to examine the intra-cultural situation in contemporary British society, Barnaby King analyzes the relationship between Black arts and mainstream arts on both a professional and community level, focusing on particular examples of practice in the Leeds and Kirklees region in which he lives and works. This first essay looks specifically at the Asian situation, reviewing the history of Arts Council policy on ethnic minority arts, and analyzing how this has shaped – and is reflected in – current practice. In the context of professional theatre, he uses the examples of the Tara and Tamasha companies, then explores the work of CHOL Theatre in Huddersfield as exemplifying multi-cultural work in the community. He also looks at the provision made by Yorkshire and Humberside Arts for the cultural needs of their Asian populations. In the second essay, to appear in NTQ62, he will be taking a similar approach towards African-Caribbean theatre in Britain. Barnaby King is a theatre practitioner based in Leeds, who completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds Workshop Theatre in 1998. He is now working with theatre companies and small-scale venues – currently the Blah Blah Blah company and the Studio Theatre at Leeds Metropolitan University – to develop community participation in theatre and drama-based activities.

New Faces For British Political Theatre

The myth of the rise and fall of political theatre in Britain appears unnecessarily dramatic when viewed through some recent developments of the English stage. The simultaneous turn of several playwrights of the older generation to focus on the unmaking of the East European socialist states, at the beginning of the '90s, proved just a fad and soon discredited the hopes for a thematic renovation of an exhausted British ideological theatre. Yet other aspects of the same writers' recent works have tackled crucial issues such as the menace of an advancing Baudrillardian world view and the consequences of the electronic media on the individual. With the emergence of new writers, new exciting possibilities are opening up. The work of Winsome Pinnock, from the established tradition of feminist and black theatre, and more recently Sarah Kane's Blasted, Patrick Marber's Closer and Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking, forcefully highlight the new nightmares of the end-of-millennium western society: uncontrolled militarism, consumerism and sex in the media era and the arid and vicious emotional landscape which has formed as a result. These are not answer plays, nor could they be. In a postmodern, post-Brechtian manner, they are terrifying reminders of this new cultural debris out of which we are trying to shape our historical existence.

Beyond the Millennium: Black Women's Writing

Nasta's piece forms part of an oral contribution to the plenary session of the conference in which a variety of speakers discussed the many questions that the conference had raised. It focuses specifically on the location and history of black women's writing in Britain and attempts to address issues that have dominated critical and theoretical discussion for some years. The question as to how far we have moved on in our reading and assessment of these literatures is discussed; also the fact that perhaps debates we now see as being contemporary were also current in the experiences of earlier representations of Britain from a black or Asian perspective. Nasta makes some tentative suggestions in terms of how we might move forward.

Audiences for live theatre in Britain: The present situation and some implications

Live theatre in Britain is performed by a host of companies in purpose‐built theatres as well as ad hoc venues. Theatre performances take place all over the country, in rural settings as well as urban environments, and no one will be more than 30 miles from a performance of some sort at some time in the year. In a typical year, over one third of the adult population attend live theatre, and 6 per cent attend opera or ballet, which tend to be presented in urban centres. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport sets store on the importance of the cultural sector and is encouraging arts organisations to develop new audiences in a host of ways. This chapter of Cultural Trends reviews the available statistics for theatre attendance, considering raw numbers of attenders, ticket revenue, ticket prices and the types of work which are most popular in London and elsewhere. It identifies the sources of information available, although it asserts that the available data are insufficient to describe the sector fully. While pointing out that regional theatre is clearly targeting the future audiences, with as many as one quarter of its performances being aimed directly at young attenders, the chapter also indicates the extent of reliance, especially in the West End of London, on musicals. An analysis of ticket prices shows that these have been, and are, rising faster than inflation. Coupled with the fact that, in the regions at least, it remains the older and better‐educated who attend theatre, this does nothing to diminish the concern that theatre may increasingly become the activity of a narrowing band of society, and that it is becoming less and less available to the broad spectrum of the population.

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990: The Case of 7:84 (Scotland)

List of illustrations Foreword John McGrath Acknowledgements Part I. Methodology and Context: 1. Introduction producing theatre histories 2. Creating a context: alternative theatre in the seventies and eighties Part II. A Case Study of 7:84 (Scotland): 3. Anatomy of a popular political theatre company 4. Making socialist theatre: the theory 5. From theory to practice: the plays Afterword Appendix: 7:84 (Scotland) productions, 1973-1988 Bibliography Index.

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990: The Case of 7:84 (Scotland) by Maria DiCenzo, and: Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies ed. by Randall Stevenson and Gavin Wallace

The Politics of Alternative Theatre in Britain, 1968-1990: The Case of 7:84 (Scotland) by Maria DiCenzo, and: Scottish Theatre Since the Seventies ed. by Randall Stevenson and Gavin Wallace

Beside the Sea: Visual Imagery, Ageing and Heritage

The role of older people as inadvertent exemplars of all that was good about the nation’s past is thrown into high relief when we consider representations of Britain’s ‘maritime heritage’. Yet such mythology has a longer pedigree than may at first be apparent. Victorian pioneers of photography championed the custom, dress and extended family roles of elders in fishing villages because these displayed an older moral world distinct from the sins of the city. Subsequently, the conflation of positive ageing and seaside living fuelled the promotion of health products and lifestyles, whilst the rise of the seaside holiday prompted a more humorous re-evaluation of the ageing body as typified by saucy postcards and family snaps. Alongside and related to the phenomenon of retiring to the seaside, a fresh imagery is being wrought as nostalgic images of the country’s seafaring history play heavily on the reminiscences of older people. Meanwhile, growing numbers of retirees opt for foreign travel. Focusing on a range of photographic materials, this chapter explores the continuities in perception that have connected ageing and older people with the morally and spiritually uplifting virtues of coastal communities.

The Future of Employee Representation

This article examines the future of employee interest representation in Britain against the broader European background. An attempt is made to define the character of interest representation in terms of the concepts of autonomy, legitimacy and efficacy. The core section of the article discusses recent and current developments with a focus on five themes: the level, structure, process, agenda and outcome of representation. A brief conclusion considers alternative scenarios and policy issues for employee representation. Underlying the whole discussion is the question: What future for (British) trade unions? No more than an imprecise and ambiguous answer can be suggested.