ABSTRACT
African American politics and culture have clearly had an impact on black British drama. This chapter demonstrates that this is discernible across a large number of plays and is evident in their content and form. The spheres of Black Power identity would become the central points of reference for the nascent black British theatre of the 1970s. The visibility of Roots and other African American popular cultural forms that encode Afrocentrism has influenced a number of black British playwrights. The adoption of African American culture in the British context draws attention to the global dissemination of Americana and its hegemony. A number of black British dramatists have sought to highlight the black British/American connection through their plays, which can be described as recuperations of history. Black Power imperatives of self-definition, cultural and historical recuperation and pride have had a considerable impact on black British theatre's development, particularly in terms of the focus on community and the formation of theatre companies.
