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Theatre's Shift in Thatcher's Era

This document discusses the impact of Margaret Thatcher's economic policies in the 1980s-1990s on the British theater industry. It outlines how funding cuts forced theaters to adopt smaller productions with less elaborate sets and move away from politically confrontational works. While playwrights remained committed to leftist ideals, the financial pressures shifted theatrical discourse. It also examines the TV series Boys from the Blackstuff and how it depicted the desperation of unemployment under Thatcher's government. Finally, it discusses how the political climate influenced the thriller series Edge of Darkness and the play Educating Rita.

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Asma Abualhaija
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11 views2 pages

Theatre's Shift in Thatcher's Era

This document discusses the impact of Margaret Thatcher's economic policies in the 1980s-1990s on the British theater industry. It outlines how funding cuts forced theaters to adopt smaller productions with less elaborate sets and move away from politically confrontational works. While playwrights remained committed to leftist ideals, the financial pressures shifted theatrical discourse. It also examines the TV series Boys from the Blackstuff and how it depicted the desperation of unemployment under Thatcher's government. Finally, it discusses how the political climate influenced the thriller series Edge of Darkness and the play Educating Rita.

Uploaded by

Asma Abualhaija
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Chapter 10

From the 1980s to the 1990s: Trapped Enough to Belong (Summary)

Even in the first year of the Conservative parliament, the cuts imposed unexpectedly by the Arts Council

made it manifestly apparent that Margaret Thatcher's economic policies would inevitably have a detrimental

effect on the subsidized theatre. What theatre workers did not expect was that, particularly in her second

term after 1983, Thatcher would systematically attempt to eliminate the socialist structures underpinning

many areas of British society. In doing so she would initiate a wider cultural shift that would affect not only

dramatic and theatrical discourse but would also force dramatists and practitioners to re-evaluate the role of

theatre in contemporary Britain.

Political theatre movement had been in raising working class consciousness and provoking widespread

demand for political change.

One result was a shift back towards more traditional well-made, realistic plays, which had mostly been

rejected by leftist dramatists of earlier decades. Smaller casts and less elaborate productions (necessitated

partly by reduced funding) became the norm, and the language of the stage became less confrontational,

perhaps even conciliatory.

These shifts in dramatic and theatrical discourse were clearly not precipitated by a lessened commitment to

the ideals of the left--at least not on the part of the playwrights like: Edward Bond, Howard Brenton, David

Hare, David Edgar, Caryl Churchill, and John McGrath.

The series Boys from the Blackstuff follows the stories of the five now-unemployed men who lost their jobs
following the events of the original play The Black Stuff. Set in Bleasdale's home city of Liverpool, and
reflecting many of his own experiences of life in the city, each episode focuses on a different member of the
group. The series was highly acclaimed for its powerful and emotional depiction of the desperation wrought
by high unemployment and a subsequent lack of social support. Although Bleasdale wrote most of the
episodes before Margaret Thatcher came to power, the series was noted by many reviewers as a critique of
the Thatcher era, which was seen as being responsible for the fate of many of the unemployed working-
class, particularly in the North of England. By early 1982, unemployment had reached 3,000,000 people
(some one-eighth of the workforce) as a result of economic recession and restructuring of industry.[3]
This darkly comic sequence emphasis how liberal humanist sympathy cannot disguise or excuse
professional instrumentality in systematic dispossession

Edge of darkness

Writer Troy Kennedy Martin was greatly influenced by the political climate of the time, dominated by
the Thatcher government, and the aura of secrecy surrounding the nuclear industry – and by the implications of
the Gaia hypothesis of environmentalist James Lovelock; these combined to his crafting a thriller that mingled
real world concerns with mythic and mystical elements. Kennedy Martin's original ending was more fantastic
than that eventually used in the finished serial: he had proposed that Craven would turn into a tree but this was
vetoed by members of the cast and crew.

Engendered rage: Educating Rita: Russell represents social and cultural authority with some irreverence.
The play leaves assumptions about the implicitly gendered nature of social and intellectual authority intact;
it also keeps the potential destabilization of passion at arm's length.

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