ABSTRACT
John Arden came to prominence in the late 1950s in the wake of the explosion of new theatrical activity, collectively known as the New Wave, triggered by John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger. In one sense, it is a case of a maverick being drawn to a maverick. Arden recognised that, like Jonson, he did not fit easily in the neat boxes of traditional dramatic criticism: they were both, in the words that give this essay its title ‘an embarrassment to the tidy mind’. The title of Arden’s key essay on his mentor is ‘Ben Jonson and the Plumb-Line’ (1977b). The Jonsonian pattern-book gave Arden a great deal. In particular, it gave him a way of conceiving dramatic action in terms of plot and situation, rather than character alone. Arden’s affinity for Jonson was kindled by seeing a production of Bartholomew Fair at the Edinburgh Festival in 1950 at the Assembly Hall in a production directed by George Devine.
