ABSTRACT
The question ‘Was there a cultural revolution in British theatre in the 1960s?’ would seem to demand an overwhelming ‘Yes’. Not only did the theatre itself change beyond recognition, but it focused the many changes taking place in the surrounding society more sharply than any other then-established art-form. Behind this bald fact, however, there lurk many possible interpretations of the exact significance of the developments involved; interpretations both affecting and affected by our understanding of the present. In this chapter I shall consider some of the ways in which the stage focused the age, and the changes in such matters as the audience, funding and censorship laws that enabled it to do so. But I shall also be considering some of the means by which our present array of readings has been mediated to us. It will therefore be useful to have an initial shuffle through some of the various ‘stories’ told about drama in the 1960s.
