Barry Reckord, Skyvers
 1944: Education
Act—universal
secondary education
 End of WWII—millions of citizens in
uniform
 Labour elected: creation of welfare state
• NHS (1948)
• Nationalisation of industry
 High-water
mark of British influence
 1948: HMT Empire Windrush as harbinger
of widespread immigration
A canal wharf. Evening.
Hurst and Attercliffe are playing cards on the top of a side-drum. A few yards
away Sparky stands, as though on guard, clapping himself to keep warm. There is
a pile of three or four heavy wooden boxes with the WD broad arrow stencilled on
them, and a lantern set on top.
Sparky
Brr, oh a cold winter, snow, dark. We wait too long, that's the trouble. Once you've
started, keep on travelling. No good sitting to wait in the middle of it. Only
makes the cold night colder. (He sings) :
One day I was drunk, boys, on the Queen's Highway
When a recruiting party come beating that way.
I was enlisted and attested before I did know
And to the Royal Barracks they forced me to go.
Brr! And they talk of the Crimea! Did I ever tell you that one about the field
kitchens at Sebastopol? Well, there was this red-haired provost-sarnt, y'see …
and then the corporal-cook – now he'd got no hair at all … now the Commissary
in that Regiment was – oh … (He finds no one paying attention.) Who's winning?
(pg. 103)
 English
Stage Company at Royal Court
Theatre (Wesker, Arden, Jellicoe,
Churchill, Ravenhill, Kane)
 Look Back in Anger
 Suez
Crisis: confirmation of decline of
British power
 Hungarian Uprising: Cold War as
stalemate
Oh, yes. There's a Vaughan Williams. Well, that's something,
anyway. Something strong, something simple, something
English. I suppose people like me aren't supposed to be very
patriotic. Somebody said – what was it – we get our cooking
from Paris (that's a laugh), our politics from Moscow, and our
morals from Port Said. Something like that, anyway. Who was it?
(Pause.) Well, you wouldn't know anyway. I hate to admit it, but I
think I can understand how her Daddy must have felt when he
came back from India, after all those years away. The old
Edwardian brigade do make their brief little world look pretty
tempting. All homemade cakes and croquet, bright ideas,
bright uniforms. Always the same picture: high summer, the
long days in the sun, slim volumes of verse, crisp linen, the
smell of starch. What a romantic picture. Phoney too, of course.
It must have rained sometimes. Still, even I regret it somehow,
phoney or not. If you've no world of your own, it's rather
pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's. I must be
getting sentimental. But I must say it's pretty dreary living in
the American Age – unless you're an American of course.
Perhaps all our children will be Americans. That's a thought
isn't it?
 Edward
Bond, Saved
 1967: renewal of charter of Arts Council
• Provincial theater expands
• Expansion also in Scotland, Wales
[pg. 88 scan]
 Does
the play possess a consistent plot?
 Is this plot fulfilled?
 Sequence
• Sequential
• Non-sequential
• Sequence unclear
 What
part of the play’s plot occurs
onstage? What part takes place offstage?
• Why does the play choose this particular part of
the plot—why significant?
 Does
the play assign class to the characters?
(If not: significant?)
 To what social classes do the various
characters belong, and how are these
expressed?
•
•
•
•
Speech
Embodiment
Action
Attention of play
 How, if
at all, is the audience addressed in
regards to class?
 How does class intersect with gender?
 Does
the play specify gender for its
characters?
 How are the play’s characters divided by
gender?
• Are the opportunities for performance divided by
gender?
 How, if
at all, is the audience addressed in
regards to gender?
 How does gender intersect with class?