ABSTRACT
In October 1966 the Royal Shakespeare Company staged a collage-documentary-debate about the Vietnam war, US, whose title was thought to be equally apt in small or capital letters. It was directed by Peter Brook at a time when he was trying to combine the shock tactics of Artaud with the coolness of Bertolt Brecht. South Africa was part of the perimeter ring of Western defences. In 1965, Ian Smith's white government in Rhodesia declared unilaterally its independence from Britain. Harold Wilson tried economic sanctions to bring down the regime in a matter of 'weeks rather than months'. It didn't. Meanwhile, General de Gaulle was blocking British efforts to join the EEC. For those of us who lived in Britain, it felt as if we were on a floating island, tethered to the United States, tugging at our moorings but afraid to drift.
