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class="vector-toc-link" href="#National_theatres"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">10</span> <span>National theatres</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-National_theatres-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-West_End_theatre" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#West_End_theatre"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">11</span> <span>West End theatre</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-West_End_theatre-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-See_also" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#See_also"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">12</span> <span>See also</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-See_also-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> <li id="toc-References" class="vector-toc-list-item vector-toc-level-1 vector-toc-list-item-expanded"> <a class="vector-toc-link" href="#References"> <div class="vector-toc-text"> <span class="vector-toc-numb">13</span> <span>References</span> </div> </a> <ul id="toc-References-sublist" class="vector-toc-list"> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </nav> </div> </div> <div class="mw-content-container"> <main id="content" class="mw-body"> <header class="mw-body-header vector-page-titlebar"> <nav aria-label="Contents" class="vector-toc-landmark"> <div id="vector-page-titlebar-toc" class="vector-dropdown vector-page-titlebar-toc vector-button-flush-left" > <input type="checkbox" id="vector-page-titlebar-toc-checkbox" role="button" aria-haspopup="true" data-event-name="ui.dropdown-vector-page-titlebar-toc" class="vector-dropdown-checkbox " aria-label="Toggle the table of contents" > <label id="vector-page-titlebar-toc-label" for="vector-page-titlebar-toc-checkbox" class="vector-dropdown-label cdx-button cdx-button--fake-button cdx-button--fake-button--enabled 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searchaux" style="display:none">Overview of theatre in the UK</div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1236090951">.mw-parser-output .hatnote{font-style:italic}.mw-parser-output div.hatnote{padding-left:1.6em;margin-bottom:0.5em}.mw-parser-output .hatnote i{font-style:normal}.mw-parser-output .hatnote+link+.hatnote{margin-top:-0.5em}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .hatnote{display:none!important}}</style><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">See also: <a href="/wiki/English_drama" title="English drama">English drama</a></div> <figure typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg/225px-Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg" decoding="async" width="225" height="127" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg/338px-Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9b/Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg/450px-Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre_aerial_photograph_2.jpg 2x" data-file-width="4384" data-file-height="2466" /></a><figcaption>The <a href="/wiki/Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre" title="Royal Shakespeare Theatre">Royal Shakespeare Theatre</a>, opened in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1932, named after the famous playwright, <a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a></figcaption></figure> <p><b>Theatre of United Kingdom</b> plays an important part in <a href="/wiki/British_culture" class="mw-redirect" title="British culture">British culture</a>, and the <a href="/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom" title="Countries of the United Kingdom">countries that constitute the UK</a> have had a vibrant tradition of <a href="/wiki/Theatre" title="Theatre">theatre</a> since the <a href="/wiki/Renaissance" title="Renaissance">Renaissance</a> with roots going back to the <a href="/wiki/Roman_Britain" title="Roman Britain">Roman occupation</a>. </p> <meta property="mw:PageProp/toc" /> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Beginnings">Beginnings</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Beginnings"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg/220px-Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="165" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg/330px-Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg/440px-Verulamium_Roman_Theatre_2.jpg 2x" data-file-width="640" data-file-height="480" /></a><figcaption>Roman theatre excavated at <a href="/wiki/Verulamium" title="Verulamium">Verulamium</a></figcaption></figure> <p>Theatre was introduced from <a href="/wiki/Europe" title="Europe">Europe</a> to what is now the United Kingdom by the <a href="/wiki/Roman_Empire" title="Roman Empire">Romans</a> and <a href="/wiki/Auditorium" title="Auditorium">auditoriums</a> were constructed across the country for this purpose (an example has been excavated at <a href="/wiki/Verulamium" title="Verulamium">Verulamium</a>). By the <a href="/wiki/Medieval" class="mw-redirect" title="Medieval">medieval</a> period, theatre had developed with the <a href="/wiki/Mummers_Play" class="mw-redirect" title="Mummers Play">mummers' plays</a>, a form of early street theatre associated with the <a href="/wiki/Morris_dance" title="Morris dance">Morris dance</a>, concentrating on themes such as <a href="/wiki/Saint_George" title="Saint George">Saint George</a> and the <a href="/wiki/European_dragon" title="European dragon">Dragon</a> and <a href="/wiki/Robin_Hood" title="Robin Hood">Robin Hood</a>. These were <a href="/wiki/Folklore" title="Folklore">folk tales</a> re-telling old stories, and the <a href="/wiki/Actor" title="Actor">actors</a> travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Medieval_theatre:_500–1500"><span id="Medieval_theatre:_500.E2.80.931500"></span>Medieval theatre: 500–1500</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Medieval theatre: 500–1500"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Medieval_theatre" title="Medieval theatre">Medieval theatre</a></div> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-left" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg/220px-Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="146" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg/330px-Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f3/Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg/440px-Second_Shepherds_Play_01620035.jpg 2x" data-file-width="1544" data-file-height="1024" /></a><figcaption>A moment from <a href="/wiki/The_Second_Shepherds%27_Play" title="The Second Shepherds' Play">The Second Shepherds' Play</a> in the <a href="/wiki/Wakefield_Mystery_Plays" title="Wakefield Mystery Plays">Wakefield Mystery Plays</a> as performed by The Players of St Peter in London in 2005.</figcaption></figure> <p>The medieval <a href="/wiki/Mystery_play" title="Mystery play">mystery plays</a> and <a href="/wiki/Morality_play" title="Morality play">morality plays</a>, which dealt with Christian themes, were performed at religious festivals. The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is <i>An Ordinale Kernewek</i> ("The Cornish <a href="/wiki/Ordinalia" title="Ordinalia">Ordinalia</a>"), a 9000-line religious drama composed around the year 1400. The longest single surviving work of <a href="/wiki/Cornish_literature" title="Cornish literature">Cornish literature</a> is <i><a href="/wiki/Bywnans_Meriasek" class="mw-redirect" title="Bywnans Meriasek">Bywnans Meriasek</a></i> (The Life of Meriasek), a play dated 1504, but probably copied from an earlier manuscript. </p><p>There are four complete or nearly complete extant English biblical collections of plays from the late <a href="/wiki/Medieval_period" class="mw-redirect" title="Medieval period">medieval period</a>; although these collections are sometimes referred to as "cycles," it is now believed that this term may attribute to these collections more coherence than they in fact possess. The most complete is the <i><a href="/wiki/York_Mystery_Plays" title="York Mystery Plays">York cycle</a></i> of forty-eight pageants. They were performed in the city of <a href="/wiki/York" title="York">York</a>, from the middle of the fourteenth century until 1569. There are also the <i><a href="/wiki/Wakefield_Cycle" class="mw-redirect" title="Wakefield Cycle">Towneley plays</a></i> of thirty-two pageants, once thought to have been a true 'cycle' of plays and most likely performed around the <a href="/wiki/Corpus_Christi_(feast)" class="mw-redirect" title="Corpus Christi (feast)">Feast of Corpus Christi</a> probably in the town of <a href="/wiki/Wakefield" title="Wakefield">Wakefield</a>, England during the late <a href="/wiki/Middle_Ages" title="Middle Ages">Middle Ages</a> until 1576. The <i><a href="/wiki/Ludus_Coventriae" class="mw-redirect" title="Ludus Coventriae">Ludus Coventriae</a></i> (also called the <a href="/wiki/N_Town_plays" class="mw-redirect" title="N Town plays">N Town plays</a>" or <i>Hegge cycle</i>), now generally agreed to be a redacted compilation of at least three older, unrelated plays, and the <i><a href="/wiki/Chester_Mystery_Plays" title="Chester Mystery Plays">Chester cycle</a></i> of twenty-four pageants, now generally agreed to be an Elizabethan reconstruction of older medieval traditions. </p><p>These biblical plays differ widely in content. Most contain episodes such as the <i>Fall of Lucifer</i>, the <i>Creation and Fall of Man</i>, <i>Cain and Abel</i>, <i>Noah and the Flood</i>, <i>Abraham and Isaac</i>, the <i>Nativity</i>, the <i>Raising of Lazarus</i>, the <i>Passion</i>, and the <i>Resurrection</i>. Other pageants included the story of <i>Moses</i>, the <i>Procession of the Prophets</i>, <i>Christ's Baptism</i>, the <i>Temptation in the Wilderness</i>, and the <i>Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin</i>. In given cycles, the plays came to be sponsored by the newly emerging Medieval <a href="/wiki/Craft_guild" class="mw-redirect" title="Craft guild">craft guilds</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Having grown out of the religiously based <a href="/wiki/Mystery_play" title="Mystery play">mystery plays</a> of the Middle Ages, the <a href="/wiki/Morality_play" title="Morality play">morality play</a> is a <a href="/wiki/Genre" title="Genre">genre</a> of <a href="/wiki/Middle_Ages" title="Middle Ages">Medieval</a> and <a href="/wiki/Tudor_period" title="Tudor period">early Tudor</a> theatrical entertainment, which represented a shift towards a more secular base for European theatre. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a <a href="/wiki/Morality" title="Morality">moral</a> theme.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Morality plays are a type of <a href="/wiki/Allegory" title="Allegory">allegory</a> in which the <a href="/wiki/Protagonist" title="Protagonist">protagonist</a> is met by <a href="/wiki/Personification" title="Personification">personifications</a> of various <a href="/wiki/Morality" title="Morality">moral</a> attributes who try to prompt him to choose a Godly life over one of evil. The plays were most popular in <a href="/wiki/Europe" title="Europe">Europe</a> during the 15th and 16th centuries. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Renaissance_theatre:_1500–1660"><span id="Renaissance_theatre:_1500.E2.80.931660"></span>Renaissance theatre: 1500–1660</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Renaissance theatre: 1500–1660"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/English_Renaissance_theatre" title="English Renaissance theatre">English Renaissance theatre</a></div> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg/220px-TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="147" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg/330px-TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/25/TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg/440px-TheGlobe02_ST_02.jpg 2x" data-file-width="1536" data-file-height="1024" /></a><figcaption><i>The Comedy of Errors</i> in performance at the <a href="/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_Globe" title="Shakespeare's Globe">Shakespeare's Globe Theatre</a> in 2002</figcaption></figure> <p>The reign of <a href="/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England" class="mw-redirect" title="Elizabeth I of England">Elizabeth I</a> in the late 16th and early 17th century saw a flowering of the drama and all the arts. Perhaps the most famous <a href="/wiki/Playwright" title="Playwright">playwright</a> in the world, <a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, wrote around 40 plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this day. They include tragedies, such as <i><a href="/wiki/Hamlet" title="Hamlet">Hamlet</a></i> (1603), <i><a href="/wiki/Othello" title="Othello">Othello</a></i> (1604), and <i><a href="/wiki/King_Lear" title="King Lear">King Lear</a></i> (1605); comedies, such as <i><a href="/wiki/A_Midsummer_Night%27s_Dream" title="A Midsummer Night's Dream">A Midsummer Night's Dream</a></i> (1594–96) and <i><a href="/wiki/Twelfth_Night" title="Twelfth Night">Twelfth Night</a></i> (1602); and history plays, such as <i><a href="/wiki/Henry_IV,_part_1" class="mw-redirect" title="Henry IV, part 1">Henry IV, Part 1</a></i>. The Elizabethan age is sometimes nicknamed the "Age of Shakespeare" for the influence he held over the era. Other important Elizabethan and 17th-century playwrights include <a href="/wiki/Ben_Jonson" title="Ben Jonson">Ben Jonson</a>, <a href="/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe" title="Christopher Marlowe">Christopher Marlowe</a>, and <a href="/wiki/John_Webster" title="John Webster">John Webster</a>. </p><p>The English playwrights were intrigued by the Italian model as a conspicuous community of Italian actors had settled in London. The linguist and lexicographer <a href="/wiki/John_Florio" title="John Florio">John Florio</a> (1553–1625), whose father was Italian, was a royal language tutor at the Court of <a href="/wiki/James_I_of_England" class="mw-redirect" title="James I of England">James I</a>, and a possible friend and influence on William Shakespeare, had brought much of the <a href="/wiki/Italian_language" title="Italian language">Italian language</a> and culture to England. The earliest Elizabethan plays includes <i><a href="/wiki/Gorboduc_(play)" title="Gorboduc (play)">Gorboduc</a></i> (1561) by <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Sackville,_1st_Earl_of_Dorset" title="Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset">Sackville</a> and <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Norton" title="Thomas Norton">Norton</a> as well as <i><a href="/wiki/The_Spanish_Tragedy" title="The Spanish Tragedy">The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad Again</a>,</i><sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="/wiki/Elizabethan" class="mw-redirect" title="Elizabethan">Elizabethan</a> <a href="/wiki/Tragedy" title="Tragedy">tragedy</a> written by <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Kyd" title="Thomas Kyd">Thomas Kyd</a> between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, <i>The Spanish Tragedy</i> established a new <a href="/wiki/Genre" title="Genre">genre</a> in English literature theatre, the <a href="/wiki/Revenge_play" title="Revenge play">revenge play</a> or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a <a href="/wiki/Personification" title="Personification">personification</a> of <a href="/wiki/Revenge" title="Revenge">Revenge</a>. <i>The Spanish Tragedy</i> was often referred to, or parodied, in works written by other Elizabethan <a href="/wiki/Playwrights" class="mw-redirect" title="Playwrights">playwrights</a>, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Christopher Marlowe. Many elements of <i>The Spanish Tragedy,</i> such as the <a href="/wiki/Play-within-a-play" class="mw-redirect" title="Play-within-a-play">play-within-a-play</a> used to trap a murderer and a <a href="/wiki/Ghost" title="Ghost">ghost</a> intent on vengeance, appear in Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet.</i> Thomas Kyd is frequently proposed as the author of the hypothetical <i><a href="/wiki/Ur-Hamlet" title="Ur-Hamlet">Ur-Hamlet</a></i> that may have been one of Shakespeare's primary sources for <i>Hamlet</i>. </p><p><a href="/wiki/George_Chapman" title="George Chapman">George Chapman</a> (c. 1559–1634) was a successful playwright who produced comedies (his collaboration on <i><a href="/wiki/Eastward_Hoe" title="Eastward Hoe">Eastward Hoe</a></i> led to his brief imprisonment in 1605 as it offended the King with its <a href="/wiki/Anti-Scottish_sentiment" title="Anti-Scottish sentiment">anti-Scottish sentiment</a>), tragedies (most notably <i><a href="/wiki/Bussy_D%27Ambois" title="Bussy D'Ambois">Bussy D'Ambois</a></i>) and court masques (<i><a href="/wiki/The_Memorable_Masque_of_the_Middle_Temple_and_Lincoln%27s_Inn" title="The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn">The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn</a></i>). </p><p><a href="/wiki/David_Lyndsay" title="David Lyndsay">David Lyndsay</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Ane_Pleasant_Satyre_of_the_Thrie_Estaitis" class="mw-redirect" title="Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis">Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis</a></i> (1552), is a surviving example of a <a href="/wiki/Scots_language" title="Scots language">Scots</a> dramatic tradition in the period that has otherwise largely been lost. <a href="/wiki/James_Wedderburn_(poet)" title="James Wedderburn (poet)">James Wedderburn</a> is recorded as having written anti-Catholic tragedies and comedies in Scots around 1540 before being forced to flee into exile. Although the propaganda value of drama in the <a href="/wiki/Scottish_Reformation" title="Scottish Reformation">Scottish Reformation</a> was important, the Kirk hardened its attitude to such public entertainments. In 1599 James VI had to intervene to overturn a prohibition on attending performances by a visiting theatre troupe from England. Scottish drama did not succeed in becoming a popular artform in the face of religious opposition and the absence of King and court after 1603. As with drama in England, only a small proportion of plays written and performed were actually published, and the smaller production in Scotland meant that a much less significant record of Scottish drama remains to us.<sup id="cite_ref-Watson_5-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Watson-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The ribald verse play in Scots, <i>Philotus</i>,<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> is known from an anonymous edition published in London in 1603.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Drama in <a href="/wiki/Wales" title="Wales">Wales</a> as a literary tradition dates to <a href="/wiki/Morality_plays" class="mw-redirect" title="Morality plays">morality plays</a> from north-east Wales in the second half of the 15th century. The development of Renaissance theatre in England did not have great influence in Wales as the gentry found different forms of artistic patronage. One surviving example of Welsh literary drama is <i>Troelus a Chresyd</i>, an anonymous adaptation from poems by Henrysoun and Chaucer dating to around 1600. With no urban centres to compare to England to support regular stages, morality plays and interludes continued to circulate in <a href="/wiki/Inn-yard_theatre" title="Inn-yard theatre">inn-yard theatres</a> and fairs, supplemented by visiting troupes performing English repertoire.<sup id="cite_ref-WalesCompanion_8-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-WalesCompanion-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Restoration_theatre:_1660_to_1710">Restoration theatre: 1660 to 1710</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: Restoration theatre: 1660 to 1710"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Restoration_theatre" class="mw-redirect" title="Restoration theatre">Restoration theatre</a></div> <p>During the <a href="/wiki/Interregnum" title="Interregnum">Interregnum</a> 1642–1660, <a href="/wiki/London_theatre_closure_1642" title="London theatre closure 1642">English theatres were kept closed</a> by the <a href="/wiki/Puritan" class="mw-redirect" title="Puritan">Puritans</a> for religious and ideological reasons. When the London theatres opened again with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, they flourished under the personal interest and support of <a href="/wiki/Charles_II_of_England" title="Charles II of England">Charles II</a> (reigned 1660–1685). Wide and socially mixed audiences were attracted by topical writing and by the introduction of the first professional actresses (in Shakespeare's time, all female roles had been played by boys). New <a href="/wiki/Genres" class="mw-redirect" title="Genres">genres</a> of the Restoration were <a href="/wiki/Heroic_drama" title="Heroic drama">heroic drama</a>, <a href="/wiki/She-tragedy" title="She-tragedy">pathetic drama</a>, and <a href="/wiki/Restoration_comedy" title="Restoration comedy">Restoration comedy</a>. The Restoration plays that have best retained the interest of producers and audiences today are the comedies, such as <a href="/wiki/William_Wycherley" title="William Wycherley">William Wycherley</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/The_Country_Wife" title="The Country Wife">The Country Wife</a></i> (1676), <i><a href="/wiki/The_Rover_(play)" title="The Rover (play)">The Rover</a></i> (1677) by the first professional woman playwright, <a href="/wiki/Aphra_Behn" title="Aphra Behn">Aphra Behn</a>, and <a href="/wiki/John_Vanbrugh" title="John Vanbrugh">John Vanbrugh</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/The_Relapse" title="The Relapse">The Relapse</a></i> (1696). Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its <a href="/wiki/Human_sexuality" title="Human sexuality">sexual</a> explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II personally and by the <a href="/wiki/Rake_(character)" class="mw-redirect" title="Rake (character)">rakish</a> <a href="/wiki/Aristocracy_(class)" title="Aristocracy (class)">aristocratic</a> ethos of his <a href="/wiki/Court" title="Court">court</a>. </p><p>Although documented history of <a href="/wiki/Irish_theatre" title="Irish theatre">Irish theatre</a> began at least as early as 1601, the earliest Irish dramatists of note were: <a href="/wiki/William_Congreve_(playwright)" class="mw-redirect" title="William Congreve (playwright)">William Congreve</a> (1670–1729), author of <i><a href="/wiki/The_Way_of_the_World" title="The Way of the World">The Way of the World</a></i> (1700); late Restoration playwright, <a href="/wiki/George_Farquhar" title="George Farquhar">George Farquhar</a> (?1677–1707), <i><a href="/wiki/The_Recruiting_Officer" title="The Recruiting Officer">The Recruiting Officer</a></i> (1706); as well as two of the most successful playwrights on the London stage in the 18th century, <a href="/wiki/Oliver_Goldsmith" title="Oliver Goldsmith">Oliver Goldsmith</a> (?1730–74), <i><a href="/wiki/She_Stoops_to_Conquer" title="She Stoops to Conquer">She Stoops to Conquer</a></i> (1773) and <a href="/wiki/Richard_Brinsley_Sheridan" title="Richard Brinsley Sheridan">Richard Brinsley Sheridan</a> (1751–1816), <i><a href="/wiki/The_School_for_Scandal" title="The School for Scandal">The School for Scandal</a></i> (1777). <a href="/wiki/Anglo-Irish" class="mw-redirect" title="Anglo-Irish">Anglo-Irish</a> drama in the 18th century also includes <a href="/wiki/Charles_Macklin" title="Charles Macklin">Charles Macklin</a> (?1699–1797), and <a href="/wiki/Arthur_Murphy_(writer)" title="Arthur Murphy (writer)">Arthur Murphy</a> (1727–1805).<sup id="cite_ref-Deane_9-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Deane-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Thomas Sydserf was behind the establishment in Edinburgh of the first regular theatre in Scotland, and his 1667 play <i>Tarugo's Wiles: or, The Coffee-House</i>, based on a Spanish play, was produced in London to amazement that a Scot could write such excellent English.<sup id="cite_ref-ScotlandsBooks_10-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-ScotlandsBooks-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Scottish poet <a href="/wiki/John_Ogilby" title="John Ogilby">John Ogilby</a>, who was the first Irish <a href="/wiki/Master_of_the_Revels" title="Master of the Revels">Master of the Revels</a>, had established the <a href="/wiki/Werburgh_Street_Theatre" title="Werburgh Street Theatre">Werburgh Street Theatre</a>, the first theatre in Ireland, in the 1630s. It was closed by the <a href="/wiki/Puritans" title="Puritans">Puritans</a> in 1641. The <a href="/wiki/Restoration_(Ireland)" title="Restoration (Ireland)">Restoration of the monarchy in Ireland</a> enabled Ogilby to resume his position as Master of the Revels and open the first <a href="/wiki/Theatre_Royal,_Dublin" title="Theatre Royal, Dublin">Theatre Royal in Dublin</a> in 1662 in Smock Alley. In 1662 <a href="/wiki/Katherine_Philips" title="Katherine Philips">Katherine Philips</a> went to <a href="/wiki/Dublin" title="Dublin">Dublin</a> where she completed a translation of <a href="/wiki/Pierre_Corneille" title="Pierre Corneille">Pierre Corneille</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/The_Death_of_Pompey" title="The Death of Pompey">Pompée</a></i>, produced with great success in 1663 in the Smock Alley Theatre, and printed in the same year both in Dublin and London. Although other women had translated or written dramas, her translation of Pompey broke new ground as the first rhymed version of a French tragedy in English and the first English play written by a woman to be performed on the professional stage. <a href="/wiki/Aphra_Behn" title="Aphra Behn">Aphra Behn</a> (one of the women writers dubbed "<a href="/wiki/The_fair_triumvirate_of_wit" title="The fair triumvirate of wit">The fair triumvirate of wit</a>") was a prolific dramatist and one of the first English professional female writers. Her greatest dramatic success was <i><a href="/wiki/The_Rover_(play)" title="The Rover (play)">The Rover</a></i> (1677). </p><p>Theatre began to spread from the United Kingdom to the expanding British Empire. Farquhar's <i>The Recruiting Officer</i> was the first play to be staged in <a href="/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York City</a> on December 6, 1732.<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-11"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>11<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> It was also the first play to be staged in the <a href="/wiki/Colony_of_New_South_Wales" title="Colony of New South Wales">Colony of New South Wales</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-12" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-12"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>12<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> which is now <a href="/wiki/Australia" title="Australia">Australia</a>. </p> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Carruber%27s_Close_plaque,_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg/220px-Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="165" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg/330px-Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ad/Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg/440px-Carruber%27s_Close_plaque%2C_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1529899.jpg 2x" data-file-width="640" data-file-height="480" /></a><figcaption>Carruber's Close, site of an early, but short-lived attempt by the poet, <a href="/wiki/Allan_Ramsay_(poet)" title="Allan Ramsay (poet)">Allan Ramsay</a>, to reintroduce theatre to Scotland in 1737.</figcaption></figure> <p>The age of <a href="/wiki/Augustan_drama" title="Augustan drama">Augustan drama</a> was brought to an end by the censorship established by the <a href="/wiki/Licensing_Act_1737" title="Licensing Act 1737">Licensing Act 1737</a>. After 1737, authors with strong political or philosophical points to make would no longer turn to the stage as their first hope of making a living, and novels began to have dramatic structures involving only normal human beings, as the stage was closed off for serious authors. Prior to the Licensing Act 1737, theatre was the first choice for most wits. After it, the novel was. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="18th-century">18th-century</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: 18th-century"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>In the 18th century, the highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy lost favour, to be replaced by <a href="/wiki/Sentimental_comedy" title="Sentimental comedy">sentimental comedy</a>, domestic <a href="/wiki/Bourgeois_tragedy" title="Bourgeois tragedy">Bourgeois tragedy</a> such as <a href="/wiki/George_Lillo" title="George Lillo">George Lillo</a>'s <a href="/wiki/The_London_Merchant" title="The London Merchant">The London Merchant</a> (1731), and by an overwhelming interest in Italian <a href="/wiki/Opera" title="Opera">opera</a>. Popular entertainment became more important in this period than ever before, with fair-booth burlesque and mixed forms that are the ancestors of the English <a href="/wiki/Music_hall" title="Music hall">music hall</a>. These forms flourished at the expense of legitimate English drama, which went into a long period of decline. By the early 19th century it was no longer represented by stage plays at all, but by the <a href="/wiki/Closet_drama" title="Closet drama">closet drama</a>, plays written to be privately read in a "closet" (a small domestic room). </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Romanticism:_1798–1836"><span id="Romanticism:_1798.E2.80.931836"></span>Romanticism: 1798–1836</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: Romanticism: 1798–1836"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/Romantic_literature_in_English" title="Romantic literature in English">Romantic literature in English</a></div> <p><a href="/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley" title="Percy Bysshe Shelley">Percy Bysshe Shelley</a> and <a href="/wiki/Lord_Byron" title="Lord Byron">Lord Byron</a> were the most important literary dramatists of their time (although Shelley's plays were not performed until later in the century). Shakespeare was enormously popular, and began to be performed with texts closer to the original, as the drastic rewriting of 17th and 18th century performing versions for the theatre (as opposed to his plays in book form, which were also widely read) was gradually removed over the first half of the century. </p> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-right" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Kean_(richardIII).jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Kean_%28richardIII%29.jpg/220px-Kean_%28richardIII%29.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="381" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Kean_%28richardIII%29.jpg 1.5x" data-file-width="300" data-file-height="519" /></a><figcaption>A <a href="/wiki/Theatre_Royal,_Exeter" title="Theatre Royal, Exeter">Theatre Royal, Exeter</a> playbill from 1836, featuring <a href="/wiki/Charles_Kean" title="Charles Kean">Charles Kean</a> in a performance of <i><a href="/wiki/Richard_III_(play)" title="Richard III (play)">Richard III</a></i></figcaption></figure> <p>Melodramas, light comedies, operas, Shakespeare and classic English drama, <a href="/wiki/Pantomimes" class="mw-redirect" title="Pantomimes">pantomimes</a>, translations of French farces and, from the 1860s, French operettas, continued to be popular, together with <a href="/wiki/Victorian_burlesque" title="Victorian burlesque">Victorian burlesque</a>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="Scotland">Scotland</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: Scotland"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>Scottish "national drama" emerged in the early 1800s, as plays with specifically Scottish themes began to dominate the Scottish stage. The existing repertoire of Scottish-themed plays included <a href="/wiki/John_Home" title="John Home">John Home</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Douglas_(play)" title="Douglas (play)">Douglas</a></i> (1756) and Ramsay's <i><a href="/wiki/The_Gentle_Shepherd" title="The Gentle Shepherd">The Gentle Shepherd</a></i> (1725), with the last two being the most popular plays among amateur groups.<sup id="cite_ref-Brown2007p231_13-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Brown2007p231-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <i>Douglas</i> elicited the famous "Whaur's Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo?" jeer from a member of one of its early audiences, and was also the subject of a number of pamphlets for and against it. It also arguably led to <a href="/wiki/James_Macpherson" title="James Macpherson">James MacPherson</a>'s Ossian cycle.<sup id="cite_ref-Keay_14-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Keay-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-15" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-15"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>15<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Home was hounded by the church authorities for <i>Douglas</i>. It may have been this persecution which drove Home to write for the London stage, in addition to <i>Douglas'</i> success there, and stopped him from founding the new Scottish national theatre that some had hoped he would.<sup id="cite_ref-Keay_14-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Keay-14"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>14<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="/wiki/Walter_Scott" title="Walter Scott">Walter Scott</a> was keenly interested in drama, becoming a shareholder in the <a href="/wiki/Theatre_Royal,_Edinburgh" title="Theatre Royal, Edinburgh">Theatre Royal, Edinburgh</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Brown2007pp185-6_16-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Brown2007pp185-6-16"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Baillie's Highland themed <i><a href="/wiki/The_Family_Legend" title="The Family Legend">The Family Legend</a></i> was first produced in Edinburgh in 1810 with the help of Scott, as part of a deliberate attempt to stimulate a national Scottish drama.<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-17"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>17<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Scott also wrote five plays, of which <i>Hallidon Hill</i> (1822) and <i>MacDuff's Cross</i> (1822), were patriotic Scottish histories.<sup id="cite_ref-Brown2007pp185-6_16-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Brown2007pp185-6-16"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>16<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Adaptations of the Waverley novels, largely first performed in minor theatres, rather than the larger Patent theatres, included <i>The Lady in the Lake</i> (1817), <i><a href="/wiki/The_Heart_of_Midlothian" title="The Heart of Midlothian">The Heart of Midlothian</a></i> (1819), and <i>Rob Roy</i>, which underwent over 1,000 performances in Scotland in this period. Also adapted for the stage were <i><a href="/wiki/Guy_Mannering" title="Guy Mannering">Guy Mannering</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Bride_of_Lammermoor" title="The Bride of Lammermoor">The Bride of Lammermoor</a></i> and <i><a href="/wiki/The_Abbot" title="The Abbot">The Abbot</a></i>. These highly popular plays saw the social range and size of the audience for theatre expand and helped shape theatre going practices in Scotland for the rest of the century.<sup id="cite_ref-Brown2007p231_13-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Brown2007p231-13"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>13<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Victorian_era:_1837–1901"><span id="Victorian_era:_1837.E2.80.931901"></span>Victorian era: 1837–1901</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: Victorian era: 1837–1901"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>In 1847, a critic using the pseudonym <i>Dramaticus</i> published a pamphlet<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-18"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>18<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> describing the parlous state of British theatre. Production of serious plays was restricted to the <a href="/wiki/Patent_theatre" title="Patent theatre">patent theatres</a>, and new plays were subjected to censorship by the <a href="/wiki/Lord_Chamberlain%27s_Office" title="Lord Chamberlain's Office">Lord Chamberlain's Office</a>. At the same time, there was a burgeoning theatre sector featuring a diet of low <a href="/wiki/Melodrama" title="Melodrama">melodrama</a> and musical <a href="/wiki/Burlesque" title="Burlesque">burlesque</a>; but critics described British theatre as driven by commercialism and a 'star' system. Kotzebue's plays were translated into English and <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Holcroft" title="Thomas Holcroft">Thomas Holcroft</a>'s <i>A Tale of Mystery</i> was the first of many English melodramas. <a href="/wiki/Pierce_Egan" title="Pierce Egan">Pierce Egan</a>, <a href="/wiki/Douglas_William_Jerrold" title="Douglas William Jerrold">Douglas William Jerrold</a>, <a href="/wiki/Edward_Fitzball" title="Edward Fitzball">Edward Fitzball</a>, <a href="/wiki/James_Roland_MacLaren" title="James Roland MacLaren">James Roland MacLaren</a> and <a href="/wiki/John_Baldwin_Buckstone" title="John Baldwin Buckstone">John Baldwin Buckstone</a> initiated a trend towards more contemporary and rural stories in preference to the usual historical or fantastical melodramas. <a href="/wiki/James_Sheridan_Knowles" title="James Sheridan Knowles">James Sheridan Knowles</a> and <a href="/wiki/Edward_Bulwer-Lytton" title="Edward Bulwer-Lytton">Edward Bulwer-Lytton</a> established a "gentlemanly" drama that began to re-establish the former prestige of the theatre with the <a href="/wiki/Aristocracy" title="Aristocracy">aristocracy</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-19"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>19<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>For much of the first half of the 19th century, drama in London and provincial theatres was restricted by a licensing system to the Patent theatre companies, and all other theatres could perform only musical entertainments (although magistrates had powers to license occasional dramatic performances). By the early 19th century, however, <a href="/wiki/Music_hall" title="Music hall">music hall</a> entertainments had become popular, and provided a loophole in the restrictions on non-patent theatres in the genre of <a href="/wiki/Melodrama" title="Melodrama">melodrama</a> which did not contravene the Patent Acts, as it was accompanied by music. The passing of the <a href="/wiki/Theatres_Act_1843" title="Theatres Act 1843">Theatres Act 1843</a> removed the monopoly on drama held by the Patent theatres, enabling local authorities to license theatres as they saw fit, and also restricted the <a href="/wiki/Theatre_censorship" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre censorship">Lord Chamberlain's powers to censor new plays</a>. The 1843 Act did not apply to Ireland where the power of the <a href="/wiki/Lord_Lieutenant_of_Ireland" title="Lord Lieutenant of Ireland">Lord Lieutenant</a> to license patent theatres enabled control of stage performance analogous to that exercised by the Lord Chamberlain in Great Britain.<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-20"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>20<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p><a href="/wiki/James_Planch%C3%A9" title="James Planché">James Planché</a> was a prolific playwright. He revolutionised stage productions of Shakespeare and the classics by introducing the use of historically appropriate <a href="/wiki/Costume_design" title="Costume design">costume design</a>, working with antiquarians to establish what was known about period dress.<sup id="cite_ref-reinhardt526_21-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-reinhardt526-21"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>21<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p><a href="/wiki/Dion_Boucicault" title="Dion Boucicault">Dion Boucicault</a> (1820–90) made the latest scientific inventions important elements in his plots and exerted considerable influence on theatrical production. His first big success, <i><a href="/wiki/London_Assurance" title="London Assurance">London Assurance</a></i> (1841) was a comedy in the style of Sheridan, but he wrote in various styles, including melodrama. <a href="/wiki/T._W._Robertson" title="T. W. Robertson">T. W. Robertson</a> wrote popular domestic comedies and introduced a more naturalistic style of acting and stagecraft to the British stage in the 1860s. </p><p>A change came in the late 19th century with the plays on the London stage by the Irishmen <a href="/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw" title="George Bernard Shaw">George Bernard Shaw</a> and <a href="/wiki/Oscar_Wilde" title="Oscar Wilde">Oscar Wilde</a> and the Norwegian <a href="/wiki/Henrik_Ibsen" title="Henrik Ibsen">Henrik Ibsen</a>, all of whom influenced domestic English drama and vitalised it again. The <a href="/wiki/Shakespeare_Memorial_Theatre" class="mw-redirect" title="Shakespeare Memorial Theatre">Shakespeare Memorial Theatre</a> was opened in Shakespeare's birthplace <a href="/wiki/Stratford_upon_Avon" class="mw-redirect" title="Stratford upon Avon">Stratford upon Avon</a> in 1879; and <a href="/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree" title="Herbert Beerbohm Tree">Herbert Beerbohm Tree</a> founded an <a href="/wiki/Royal_Academy_of_Dramatic_Art" title="Royal Academy of Dramatic Art">Academy of Dramatic Art</a> at <a href="/wiki/His_Majesty%27s_Theatre,_London" title="His Majesty's Theatre, London">Her Majesty's Theatre</a> in 1904. </p><p>Producer <a href="/wiki/Richard_D%27Oyly_Carte" title="Richard D'Oyly Carte">Richard D'Oyly Carte</a> brought together librettist <a href="/wiki/W._S._Gilbert" title="W. S. Gilbert">W. S. Gilbert</a> and composer <a href="/wiki/Arthur_Sullivan" title="Arthur Sullivan">Arthur Sullivan</a>, and nurtured their collaboration.<sup id="cite_ref-Carpet_22-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Carpet-22"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>22<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Among <a href="/wiki/Gilbert_and_Sullivan" title="Gilbert and Sullivan">Gilbert and Sullivan</a>'s best known <a href="/wiki/Comic_opera" title="Comic opera">comic operas</a> are <i><a href="/wiki/H.M.S._Pinafore" title="H.M.S. Pinafore">H.M.S. Pinafore</a></i>, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Penzance" title="The Pirates of Penzance">The Pirates of Penzance</a></i> and <i><a href="/wiki/The_Mikado" title="The Mikado">The Mikado</a></i>.<sup id="cite_ref-23" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-23"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>23<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Carte built the <a href="/wiki/Savoy_Theatre" title="Savoy Theatre">Savoy Theatre</a> in 1881 to present their joint works, and through the inventor of electric light <a href="/wiki/Sir_Joseph_Swan" class="mw-redirect" title="Sir Joseph Swan">Sir Joseph Swan</a>, the Savoy was the first theatre, and the first public building in the world, to be lit entirely by electricity.<sup id="cite_ref-24" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-24"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>24<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-25" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-25"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>25<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The success of Gilbert and Sullivan greatly expanded the audience for musical theatre.<sup id="cite_ref-26" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-26"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>26<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> This, together with much improved street lighting and transportation in London led to a late Victorian and Edwardian theatre building boom in the West End. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="20th-century">20th-century</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: 20th-century"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>At the end of the century, <a href="/wiki/Edwardian_musical_comedy" title="Edwardian musical comedy">Edwardian musical comedy</a> came to dominate the musical stage.<sup id="cite_ref-What_are_EdMusComs?_27-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-What_are_EdMusComs?-27"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>27<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Irish playwrights <a href="/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw" title="George Bernard Shaw">George Bernard Shaw</a> (1856–1950) and <a href="/wiki/J._M._Synge" class="mw-redirect" title="J. M. Synge">J. M. Synge</a> (1871–1909) were influential in British drama. Shaw's career as a playwright began in the last decade of the nineteenth century, while Synge's plays belong to the first decade of the twentieth century. Synge's most famous play, <i><a href="/wiki/The_Playboy_of_the_Western_World" title="The Playboy of the Western World">The Playboy of the Western World</a></i>, "caused outrage and riots when it was first performed" in Dublin in 1907.<sup id="cite_ref-28" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-28"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>28<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> George Bernard Shaw turned the <a href="/wiki/Edwardian" class="mw-redirect" title="Edwardian">Edwardian</a> theatre into an arena for debate about important political and social issues, like marriage, class, "the morality of armaments and war" and the rights of women.<sup id="cite_ref-29" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-29"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>29<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>In the 1920s and later <a href="/wiki/No%C3%ABl_Coward" title="Noël Coward">Noël Coward</a> (1899–1973) achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards. Many of his works, such as <i><a href="/wiki/Hay_Fever_(play)" title="Hay Fever (play)">Hay Fever</a></i> (1925), <i><a href="/wiki/Private_Lives" title="Private Lives">Private Lives</a></i> (1930), <i><a href="/wiki/Design_for_Living" title="Design for Living">Design for Living</a></i> (1932), <i><a href="/wiki/Present_Laughter" title="Present Laughter">Present Laughter</a></i> (1942) and <i><a href="/wiki/Blithe_Spirit_(play)" title="Blithe Spirit (play)">Blithe Spirit</a></i> (1941), have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. In the 1930s <a href="/wiki/W._H._Auden" title="W. H. Auden">W. H. Auden</a> and <a href="/wiki/Christopher_Isherwood" title="Christopher Isherwood">Christopher Isherwood</a> co-authored verse dramas, of which <a href="/wiki/The_Ascent_of_F6" title="The Ascent of F6">The Ascent of F6</a> (1936) is the most notable, that owed much to <a href="/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht" title="Bertolt Brecht">Bertolt Brecht</a>. <a href="/wiki/T._S._Eliot" title="T. S. Eliot">T. S. Eliot</a> had begun this attempt to revive poetic drama with <i><a href="/wiki/Sweeney_Agonistes" title="Sweeney Agonistes">Sweeney Agonistes</a></i> in 1932, and this was followed by <i><a href="/wiki/The_Rock_(play)" title="The Rock (play)">The Rock</a></i> (1934), <i><a href="/wiki/Murder_in_the_Cathedral" title="Murder in the Cathedral">Murder in the Cathedral</a></i> (1935) and <i><a href="/wiki/Family_Reunion" class="mw-redirect" title="Family Reunion">Family Reunion</a></i> (1939). There were three further plays after the war. </p><p><a href="/wiki/Saunders_Lewis" title="Saunders Lewis">Saunders Lewis</a> (1893–1985), writer in Welsh, was above all a dramatist. His earliest published play was <i>Blodeuwedd</i> (The woman of flowers) (1923–25, revised 1948). Other notable plays include <i>Buchedd Garmon</i> (The life of Germanus) (radio play, 1936) and several others after the war. </p><p><a href="/wiki/James_Bridie" title="James Bridie">James Bridie</a>, the pseudonym used by Osborne Henry Mavor (1888–1951), was a Scottish playwright, screenwriter and surgeon, considered to be a founding father of modern Scottish theatre, following his involvement with the founding of both the <a href="/wiki/Citizens_Theatre" title="Citizens Theatre">Citizens Theatre</a> and Scotland's first college of drama, now known as the <a href="/wiki/Royal_Scottish_Academy_of_Music_and_Drama" class="mw-redirect" title="Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama">Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama</a>. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3"><h3 id="After_1945">After 1945</h3><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: After 1945"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>The <a href="/wiki/Edinburgh_Festival_Fringe" title="Edinburgh Festival Fringe">Edinburgh Festival Fringe</a> started life when eight theatre companies turned up uninvited to the inaugural <a href="/wiki/Edinburgh_International_Festival" title="Edinburgh International Festival">Edinburgh International Festival</a> in 1947. Seven performed in Edinburgh, and one undertook a version of the medieval morality play "Everyman" in <a href="/wiki/Dunfermline_Abbey" title="Dunfermline Abbey">Dunfermline Abbey</a>, about 20 miles north, across the <a href="/wiki/Firth_of_Forth" title="Firth of Forth">Firth of Forth</a>, in Fife. These groups aimed to take advantage of the large assembled theatre crowds to showcase their own, alternative, theatre. The Fringe got its name the following year (1948) after <a href="/wiki/Robert_Kemp_(playwright)" title="Robert Kemp (playwright)">Robert Kemp</a>, a Scottish playwright and journalist, wrote during the second <a href="/wiki/Edinburgh_International_Festival" title="Edinburgh International Festival">Edinburgh International Festival</a>: ‘Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before ... I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!’.<sup id="cite_ref-30" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-30"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>30<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The artistic credentials of the Fringe were established by the creators of the <a href="/wiki/Traverse_Theatre" title="Traverse Theatre">Traverse Theatre</a>, <a href="/wiki/John_Calder" title="John Calder">John Calder</a>, <a href="/wiki/James_Haynes" class="mw-redirect" title="James Haynes">Jim Haynes</a> and <a href="/wiki/Richard_Demarco" title="Richard Demarco">Richard Demarco</a> in 1963. While their original objective was to maintain something of the Festival atmosphere in Edinburgh all year round, the Traverse Theatre quickly and regularly presented cutting edge drama to an international audience on both the <a href="/wiki/Edinburgh_International_Festival" title="Edinburgh International Festival">Edinburgh International Festival</a> and on the Fringe during August. </p><p><a href="/wiki/Sadler%27s_Wells" class="mw-redirect" title="Sadler's Wells">Sadler's Wells</a>, under <a href="/wiki/Lilian_Baylis" title="Lilian Baylis">Lilian Baylis</a>, nurtured talent that led to the development of an opera company, which became the <a href="/wiki/English_National_Opera" title="English National Opera">English National Opera</a> (ENO), a theatre company, which evolved into the National Theatre, and a ballet company, which eventually became the English <a href="/wiki/Royal_Ballet" class="mw-redirect" title="Royal Ballet">Royal Ballet</a>. </p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Royal_Shakespeare_Company" title="Royal Shakespeare Company">Royal Shakespeare Company</a> operates out of Stratford-upon-Avon, producing mainly but not exclusively Shakespeare's plays. The RSC was formally established on 20 March 1961 with the royal announcement that the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre would henceforth be known as the <a href="/wiki/Royal_Shakespeare_Theatre" title="Royal Shakespeare Theatre">Royal Shakespeare Theatre</a> and the company as the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1962 the RSC established the <a href="/wiki/Aldwych_Theatre" title="Aldwych Theatre">Aldwych Theatre</a> as its London base for productions transferred from Stratford to London, its stage redesigned to match the RST's apron stage. In 1982, the company took up London residence in both the Barbican Theatre and The Pit studio space in the <a href="/wiki/Barbican_Centre" title="Barbican Centre">Barbican Centre</a> under the auspices of the <a href="/wiki/City_of_London" title="City of London">City of London</a>. The RSC was closely involved in the design of these two venues. Since 2002 the RSC has had no regular London home, concentrating its work in Stratford at the <a href="/wiki/Swan_Theatre_(Stratford)" class="mw-redirect" title="Swan Theatre (Stratford)">Swan Theatre</a> and the redeveloped Royal Shakespeare Theatre (re-opened in 2010). </p><p>An important cultural movement in the British theatre that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was <a href="/wiki/Kitchen_sink_realism" title="Kitchen sink realism">Kitchen sink realism</a> (or <i>kitchen sink drama</i>), art (the term itself derives from an expressionist painting by <a href="/wiki/John_Bratby" title="John Bratby">John Bratby</a>), novels, film, and <a href="/wiki/Television_play" title="Television play">television plays</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-31" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-31"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>31<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The term <a href="/wiki/Angry_young_men" title="Angry young men">angry young men</a> was often applied members of this artistic movement. It used a style of <a href="/wiki/Social_realism" title="Social realism">social realism</a> which depicts the domestic lives of the working class, to explore social issues and political issues. The <a href="/wiki/Drawing_room_play" title="Drawing room play">drawing room plays</a> of the post war period, typical of dramatists like <a href="/wiki/Terence_Rattigan" title="Terence Rattigan">Terence Rattigan</a> and <a href="/wiki/No%C3%ABl_Coward" title="Noël Coward">Noël Coward</a> were challenged in the 1950s by these <a href="/wiki/Angry_Young_Men" class="mw-redirect" title="Angry Young Men">Angry Young Men</a>, in plays like <a href="/wiki/John_Osborne" title="John Osborne">John Osborne</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Look_Back_in_Anger" title="Look Back in Anger">Look Back in Anger</a></i> (1956). <a href="/wiki/Arnold_Wesker" title="Arnold Wesker">Arnold Wesker</a> and <a href="/wiki/Nell_Dunn" title="Nell Dunn">Nell Dunn</a> also brought social concerns to the stage. </p><p>Again in the 1950s, the <a href="/wiki/Absurdism" title="Absurdism">absurdist</a> play <i><a href="/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot" title="Waiting for Godot">Waiting for Godot</a></i> (1955) (originally <i><a href="/wiki/En_attendant_Godot" class="mw-redirect" title="En attendant Godot">En attendant Godot</a></i>, 1952), by the Paris-based Irish expatriate <a href="/wiki/Samuel_Beckett" title="Samuel Beckett">Samuel Beckett</a> profoundly affected British drama. The <a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Absurd" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of the Absurd">Theatre of the Absurd</a> influenced <a href="/wiki/Harold_Pinter" title="Harold Pinter">Harold Pinter</a> (1930-2008), (The Birthday Party, 1958), whose works are often characterised by menace or claustrophobia.<sup id="cite_ref-32" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-32"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>32<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Beckett also influenced <a href="/wiki/Tom_Stoppard" title="Tom Stoppard">Tom Stoppard</a> (1937-) (<i><a href="/wiki/Rosencrantz_and_Guildenstern_are_Dead" class="mw-redirect" title="Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead">Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</a></i>,1966).<sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-33"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>33<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Stoppard's works are however also notable for their high-spirited wit and the great range of intellectual issues which he tackles in different plays. Both Pinter and Stoppard continued to have new plays produced into the 1990s. </p><p><i><a href="/wiki/Beyond_the_Fringe" title="Beyond the Fringe">Beyond the Fringe</a></i> was a <a href="/wiki/Comedy" title="Comedy">comedy</a> stage revue written and performed by <a href="/wiki/Peter_Cook" title="Peter Cook">Peter Cook</a>, <a href="/wiki/Dudley_Moore" title="Dudley Moore">Dudley Moore</a>, <a href="/wiki/Alan_Bennett" title="Alan Bennett">Alan Bennett</a>, and <a href="/wiki/Jonathan_Miller" title="Jonathan Miller">Jonathan Miller</a>. It played in London's West End and then on <a href="/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Broadway_theatre" title="Broadway theatre">Broadway</a> in the early 1960s, and is widely regarded as seminal to the <a href="/wiki/Satire_boom" title="Satire boom">rise of satire in 1960s Britain</a>. </p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Chichester_Festival_Theatre" title="Chichester Festival Theatre">Chichester Festival Theatre</a> was Britain's first modern thrust stage theatre. It was inspired by the Festival Theatre of the <a href="/wiki/Stratford_Shakespeare_Festival" class="mw-redirect" title="Stratford Shakespeare Festival">Stratford Shakespeare Festival</a> launched by <a href="/wiki/Tyrone_Guthrie" title="Tyrone Guthrie">Tyrone Guthrie</a> in the <a href="/wiki/Canada" title="Canada">Canadian</a> city of <a href="/wiki/Stratford,_Ontario" title="Stratford, Ontario">Stratford, Ontario</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-34"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>34<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The inaugural <a href="/wiki/Artistic_Director" class="mw-redirect" title="Artistic Director">Artistic Director</a> of the Chichester Festival was Sir <a href="/wiki/Laurence_Olivier" title="Laurence Olivier">Laurence Olivier</a>, and it was at Chichester that the first National Theatre company was formed. <a href="/wiki/Chichester_Festival_production_history" title="Chichester Festival production history">Chichester's productions</a> would transfer to the National Theatre's base at the <a href="/wiki/Old_Vic" class="mw-redirect" title="Old Vic">Old Vic</a> in <a href="/wiki/London" title="London">London</a>. </p><p>The <a href="/wiki/Theatres_Act_1968" title="Theatres Act 1968">Theatres Act 1968</a> abolished the system of censorship of the stage that had existed in Great Britain since 1737. The new freedoms of the London stage were tested by <a href="/wiki/Howard_Brenton" title="Howard Brenton">Howard Brenton</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/The_Romans_in_Britain" title="The Romans in Britain">The Romans in Britain</a></i>, first staged at the <a href="/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre" title="Royal National Theatre">National Theatre</a> during 1980, and subsequently the focus of an unsuccessful private prosecution in 1982. </p><p>The height of <a href="/wiki/Alan_Ayckbourn" title="Alan Ayckbourn">Alan Ayckbourn</a>'s commercial success included <i><a href="/wiki/Absurd_Person_Singular" title="Absurd Person Singular">Absurd Person Singular</a></i> (1975), <i><a href="/wiki/The_Norman_Conquests" title="The Norman Conquests">The Norman Conquests</a></i> trilogy (1973), <i><a href="/wiki/Bedroom_Farce_(play)" title="Bedroom Farce (play)">Bedroom Farce</a></i> (1975) and <i>Just Between Ourselves</i> (1976), all plays that focused heavily on marriage in the British middle classes. Throughout his writing career, all but four of his plays were premièred at the <a href="/wiki/Stephen_Joseph_Theatre" title="Stephen Joseph Theatre">Stephen Joseph Theatre</a> in Scarborough in its three different locations.<sup id="cite_ref-webbio_35-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-webbio-35"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>35<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The Stephen Joseph Theatre was the first theatre in the round in Britain. </p><p>Other playwrights whose careers began later in the century are: <a href="/wiki/Caryl_Churchill" title="Caryl Churchill">Caryl Churchill</a> (<i><a href="/wiki/Top_Girls" title="Top Girls">Top Girls</a></i>, 1982), <a href="/wiki/Michael_Frayn" title="Michael Frayn">Michael Frayn</a> (1933-) playwright and novelist, <a href="/wiki/David_Hare_(playwright)" title="David Hare (playwright)">David Hare</a> (1947- ), <a href="/wiki/David_Edgar_(playwright)" title="David Edgar (playwright)">David Edgar</a> (1948- ). <a href="/wiki/Dennis_Potter" title="Dennis Potter">Dennis Potter</a>'s most distinctive dramatic work was produced for television. </p><p><i><a href="/wiki/Translations_(play)" title="Translations (play)">Translations</a></i> by <a href="/wiki/Brian_Friel" title="Brian Friel">Brian Friel</a> was first performed at the <a href="/wiki/Guildhall,_Derry" title="Guildhall, Derry">Guildhall, Derry</a>, <a href="/wiki/Northern_Ireland" title="Northern Ireland">Northern Ireland</a>, in 1980. An Irish-language version of the play has been produced.<sup id="cite_ref-36" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-36"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>36<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The play has also been translated into <a href="/wiki/Welsh_language" title="Welsh language">Welsh</a> by <a href="/wiki/Elan_Closs_Stephens" title="Elan Closs Stephens">Elan Closs Stephens</a>. The Welsh version has visited a number of venues in Wales and was first published by <a href="/wiki/Gwasg_Carreg_Gwalch" title="Gwasg Carreg Gwalch">Gwasg Carreg Gwalch</a>, under its Welsh title <i>Torri Gair</i> ("Breaking the Word"), in 1982. It is "a play about language and only about language", but it deals with a wide range of issues, stretching from language and communication to Irish history and cultural imperialism. Friel responds strongly to both political and language questions in modern-day Northern Ireland. </p><p>In 1970, American actor and director <a href="/wiki/Sam_Wanamaker" title="Sam Wanamaker">Sam Wanamaker</a> founded the Shakespeare Globe Trust and the International Shakespeare Globe Centre, with the objective of building a faithful recreation of Shakespeare's Globe close to its original location at Bankside, Southwark. <a href="/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_Globe" title="Shakespeare's Globe">Shakespeare's Globe</a> opened to the public in 1997. Performances are engineered to duplicate the original environment of Shakespeare's Globe; there are no spotlights, plays are staged during daylight hours and in the evenings (with the help of interior floodlights), there are no microphones, speakers or amplification. </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Radio_drama">Radio drama</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=11" title="Edit section: Radio drama"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>During the 1950s and 1960s, many major British playwrights either effectively began their careers with the <a href="/wiki/BBC" title="BBC">BBC</a>, or had works adapted for radio. Most of playwright <a href="/wiki/Caryl_Churchill" title="Caryl Churchill">Caryl Churchill</a>'s early experiences with professional drama production were as a radio playwright and, starting in 1962 with <i>The Ants</i>, there were nine productions with BBC radio drama up until 1973 when her stage work began to be recognised at the <a href="/wiki/Royal_Court_Theatre" title="Royal Court Theatre">Royal Court Theatre</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-37" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-37"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>37<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="/wiki/Joe_Orton" title="Joe Orton">Joe Orton</a>'s dramatic debut in 1963 was the radio play <i>The Ruffian on the Stair</i>, which was broadcast on 31 August 1964.<sup id="cite_ref-autogenerated1_38-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-autogenerated1-38"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>38<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="/wiki/Tom_Stoppard" title="Tom Stoppard">Tom Stoppard</a>'s "first professional production was in the fifteen-minute <i>Just Before Midnight</i> programme on BBC Radio, which showcased new dramatists".<sup id="cite_ref-autogenerated1_38-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-autogenerated1-38"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>38<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="/wiki/John_Mortimer" title="John Mortimer">John Mortimer</a> made his radio debut as a dramatist in 1955, with his adaptation of his own novel <i>Like Men Betrayed</i> for the <a href="/wiki/BBC" title="BBC">BBC</a> <a href="/wiki/Light_Programme" class="mw-redirect" title="Light Programme">Light Programme</a>. But he made his debut as an original playwright with <i><a href="/wiki/The_Dock_Brief" title="The Dock Brief">The Dock Brief</a></i>, starring <a href="/wiki/Michael_Hordern" title="Michael Hordern">Michael Hordern</a> as a hapless barrister, first broadcast in 1957 on <a href="/wiki/BBC_Radio" title="BBC Radio">BBC Radio</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Third_Programme" class="mw-redirect" title="Third Programme">Third Programme</a>, later televised with the same cast, and subsequently presented in a double bill with <i>What Shall We Tell Caroline?</i> at the <a href="/wiki/Lyric_Hammersmith" class="mw-redirect" title="Lyric Hammersmith">Lyric Hammersmith</a> in April 1958, before transferring to the <a href="/wiki/Garrick_Theatre" title="Garrick Theatre">Garrick Theatre</a>. Mortimer is most famous for <a href="/wiki/Rumpole_of_the_Bailey" title="Rumpole of the Bailey">Rumpole of the Bailey</a> a <a href="/wiki/British_television" class="mw-redirect" title="British television">British television</a> series which starred <a href="/wiki/Leo_McKern" title="Leo McKern">Leo McKern</a> as Horace Rumpole, an aging London barrister who defends any and all clients. It has been spun off into a series of short stories, novels, and radio programmes.<sup id="cite_ref-39" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-39"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>39<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Other notable radio dramatists included <a href="/wiki/Brendan_Behan" title="Brendan Behan">Brendan Behan</a> and novelist <a href="/wiki/Angela_Carter" title="Angela Carter">Angela Carter</a>. Novelist <a href="/wiki/Susan_Hill" title="Susan Hill">Susan Hill</a> also wrote for BBC radio, from the early 1970s.<sup id="cite_ref-40" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-40"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>40<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Irish playwright <a href="/wiki/Brendan_Behan" title="Brendan Behan">Brendan Behan</a>, author of <i><a href="/wiki/The_Quare_Fellow" title="The Quare Fellow">The Quare Fellow</a></i> (1954), was commissioned by the BBC to write a radio play <i>The Big House</i> (1956); prior to this he had written two plays <i>Moving Out</i> and <i>A Garden Party</i> for Irish radio.<sup id="cite_ref-41" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-41"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>41<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p>Among the most famous works created for radio are <a href="/wiki/Dylan_Thomas" title="Dylan Thomas">Dylan Thomas</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Under_Milk_Wood" title="Under Milk Wood">Under Milk Wood</a></i> (1954), which was later adpated into the 1972 film starring <a href="/wiki/Richard_Burton" title="Richard Burton">Richard Burton</a> and <a href="/wiki/Glynis_Johns" title="Glynis Johns">Glynis Johns</a>, <a href="/wiki/Samuel_Beckett" title="Samuel Beckett">Samuel Beckett</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/All_That_Fall" title="All That Fall">All That Fall</a></i> (1957), <a href="/wiki/Harold_Pinter" title="Harold Pinter">Harold Pinter</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/A_Slight_Ache" title="A Slight Ache">A Slight Ache</a></i> (1959), <a href="/wiki/Robert_Bolt" title="Robert Bolt">Robert Bolt</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons_(play)" title="A Man for All Seasons (play)">A Man for All Seasons</a></i> (1954),<sup id="cite_ref-42" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-42"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>42<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> and <a href="/wiki/Terence_Rattigan" title="Terence Rattigan">Terence Rattigan</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Cause_C%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre_(play)" title="Cause Célèbre (play)">Cause Célèbre</a></i> (1975), which earned starring actress <a href="/wiki/Glynis_Johns" title="Glynis Johns">Glynis Johns</a> a <a href="/wiki/Variety_Club" class="mw-redirect" title="Variety Club">Variety Club Award for Best Actress</a> and <a href="/wiki/Laurence_Olivier_Awards" title="Laurence Olivier Awards">Laurence Olivier Award</a> nomination.<sup id="cite_ref-43" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-43"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>43<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p><p><a href="/wiki/Samuel_Beckett" title="Samuel Beckett">Samuel Beckett</a> wrote a number of short radio plays in the 1950s and 1960s, and later for television. Beckett's radio play <i><a href="/wiki/Embers" title="Embers">Embers</a></i> was first broadcast on the <a href="/wiki/BBC_Third_Programme" title="BBC Third Programme">BBC Third Programme</a> on 24 June 1959, and won the RAI prize at the <a href="/wiki/Prix_Italia" title="Prix Italia">Prix Italia</a> awards later that year.<sup id="cite_ref-44" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-44"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>44<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="National_theatres">National theatres</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=12" title="Edit section: National theatres"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p>From the 1840s there was a demand to commemorate serious theatre, with the "Shakespeare Committee" purchasing the playwright's birthplace for the nation demonstrating a recognition of the importance of 'serious drama'. The following year saw more pamphlets on a demand for a National Theatre from London publisher, Effingham William Wilson.<sup id="cite_ref-45" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-45"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>45<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The situation continued, with a renewed call every decade for a National Theatre. In 1879 the residency of the <a href="/wiki/Com%C3%A9die-Fran%C3%A7aise" title="Comédie-Française">Comédie-Française</a> at the <a href="/wiki/Gaiety_Theatre,_London" title="Gaiety Theatre, London">Gaiety Theatre</a> inspired further demands, including: a structure in the capital that would present "exemplary theatre"; that would form a permanent memorial to Shakespeare; a supported company that would represent the best of British acting; and a theatre school.<sup id="cite_ref-Trans_46-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Trans-46"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>46<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> A London Shakespeare League was founded in 1902 to develop a Shakespeare National Theatre and – with the impending tri-centenary in 1916 of his death – in 1913 purchased land for a theatre in <a href="/wiki/Bloomsbury" title="Bloomsbury">Bloomsbury</a>. This work was interrupted by World War I. Finally, in 1948, the <a href="/wiki/London_County_Council" title="London County Council">London County Council</a> presented a site close to the <a href="/wiki/Royal_Festival_Hall" title="Royal Festival Hall">Royal Festival Hall</a> for the purpose, and a "National Theatre Act", offering financial support, was passed by <a href="/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom" title="Parliament of the United Kingdom">Parliament</a> in 1949.<sup id="cite_ref-Winding_47-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Winding-47"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>47<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> In July 1962, a board was set up to supervise construction of a <a href="/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre" title="Royal National Theatre">National Theatre on the South Bank</a> site and a separate board was constituted to run a National Theatre Company and lease the <a href="/wiki/Old_Vic" class="mw-redirect" title="Old Vic">Old Vic</a> theatre. The company was to remain at the Old Vic until 1976, when the new <a href="/wiki/South_Bank" title="South Bank">South Bank</a> building was opened. </p><p>The theatrical landscape has since been reconfigured, moving from a single national theatre at the end of the 20th century to four as a result of the devolution of cultural policy.<sup id="cite_ref-48" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-48"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>48<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> National theatre companies were founded in Scotland and Wales as complements to the <a href="/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre" title="Royal National Theatre">Royal National Theatre</a> in London: <a href="/wiki/Theatr_Genedlaethol_Cymru" title="Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru">Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru</a> (the Welsh language national theatre of Wales, founded 2003), <a href="/wiki/National_Theatre_of_Scotland" title="National Theatre of Scotland">National Theatre of Scotland</a> (founded 2006), <a href="/wiki/National_Theatre_Wales" title="National Theatre Wales">National Theatre Wales</a> (the English language national theatre company of Wales, founded 2009). Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru attempts to shape a distinctive identity for drama in Welsh while also opening it up to outside linguistic and dramatic influences.<sup id="cite_ref-49" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-49"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>49<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="West_End_theatre">West End theatre</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=13" title="Edit section: West End theatre"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1236090951"><div role="note" class="hatnote navigation-not-searchable">Main article: <a href="/wiki/West_End_theatre" title="West End theatre">West End theatre</a></div> <p>The <a href="/wiki/West_End_of_London" title="West End of London">West End of London</a> has a large number of theatres, particularly centred around <a href="/wiki/Shaftesbury_Avenue" title="Shaftesbury Avenue">Shaftesbury Avenue</a>. </p><p><i>West End theatre</i> is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of <a href="/wiki/London" title="London">London</a>'s "Theatreland".<sup id="cite_ref-cgt_50-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-cgt-50"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>50<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Along with <a href="/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Broadway_theatre" title="Broadway theatre">Broadway theatre</a>, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial <a href="/wiki/Theatre" title="Theatre">theatre</a> in the <a href="/wiki/English_language" title="English language">English-speaking</a> world. Seeing a West End show is a common <a href="/wiki/Tourism" title="Tourism">tourist</a> activity in London.<sup id="cite_ref-cgt_50-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-cgt-50"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>50<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg/220px-Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="161" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg/330px-Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg/440px-Jesus_Christ_Superstar_at_the_Minack_Theatre_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1903089.jpg 2x" data-file-width="640" data-file-height="467" /></a><figcaption>Andrew Lloyd Webber and <a href="/wiki/Tim_Rice" title="Tim Rice">Tim Rice</a>'s <i><a href="/wiki/Jesus_Christ_Superstar" title="Jesus Christ Superstar">Jesus Christ Superstar</a></i> in performance at the <a href="/wiki/Minack_Theatre" title="Minack Theatre">Minack Theatre</a>, near to St Levan, Cornwall</figcaption></figure> <p>A prolific composer of <a href="/wiki/Musical_theatre" title="Musical theatre">musical theatre</a> in the 20th century, <a href="/wiki/Andrew_Lloyd_Webber" title="Andrew Lloyd Webber">Andrew Lloyd Webber</a> has been referred to as "the most commercially successful composer in history".<sup id="cite_ref-BTR_51-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-BTR-51"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>51<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> His musicals have dominated the West End for a number of years and have travelled to <a href="/wiki/Broadway_theater" class="mw-redirect" title="Broadway theater">Broadway</a> in <a href="/wiki/New_York_City" title="New York City">New York City</a> and around the world as well as being turned into <a href="/wiki/Film" title="Film">films</a>. Lloyd Webber's musicals originally starred <a href="/wiki/Elaine_Paige" title="Elaine Paige">Elaine Paige</a>, who with continued success has become known as the First Lady of British Musical Theatre.<sup id="cite_ref-52" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-52"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>52<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> </p> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=14" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Scotland" title="Theatre of Scotland">Theatre of Scotland</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Wales" title="Theatre of Wales">Theatre of Wales</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Ireland" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Ireland">Theatre of Ireland</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/List_of_theatres_in_the_United_Kingdom" title="List of theatres in the United Kingdom">List of theatres in the United Kingdom</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Laurence_Olivier_Awards" title="Laurence Olivier Awards">Laurence Olivier Awards</a> — presented annually by the <a href="/wiki/Society_of_London_Theatre" title="Society of London Theatre">Society of London Theatre</a> to recognise excellence in <a href="/wiki/West_End_theatre" title="West End theatre">professional theatre in London</a>.</li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&action=edit&section=15" title="Edit section: References"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1239543626">.mw-parser-output .reflist{margin-bottom:0.5em;list-style-type:decimal}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .reflist{font-size:90%}}.mw-parser-output .reflist .references{font-size:100%;margin-bottom:0;list-style-type:inherit}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-2{column-width:30em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns-3{column-width:25em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns{margin-top:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns ol{margin-top:0}.mw-parser-output .reflist-columns li{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-alpha{list-style-type:upper-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-upper-roman{list-style-type:upper-roman}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-alpha{list-style-type:lower-alpha}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-greek{list-style-type:lower-greek}.mw-parser-output .reflist-lower-roman{list-style-type:lower-roman}</style><div class="reflist reflist-columns references-column-width" style="column-width: 30em;"> <ol class="references"> <li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">.mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free.id-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited.id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration.id-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription.id-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,body:not(.skin-timeless):not(.skin-minerva) .mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background-size:contain;padding:0 1em 0 0}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:var(--color-error,#d33)}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#085;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}@media screen{.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}html.skin-theme-clientpref-night .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}@media screen and (prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{color:#18911f}}</style><cite id="CITEREFOxenford1958" class="citation book cs1">Oxenford, Lyn (1958). <i>Playing Period Plays</i>. Chicago, IL: Coach House Press. p. 3. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0853435499" title="Special:BookSources/0853435499"><bdi>0853435499</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Playing+Period+Plays&rft.place=Chicago%2C+IL&rft.pages=3&rft.pub=Coach+House+Press&rft.date=1958&rft.isbn=0853435499&rft.aulast=Oxenford&rft.aufirst=Lyn&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFMikics2007" class="citation book cs1">Mikics, David (2007). <span class="id-lock-registration" title="Free registration required"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/newhandbookoflit0000miki"><i>A New Handbook of Literary Terms</i></a></span>. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. p. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/newhandbookoflit0000miki/page/194">194</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780300106367" title="Special:BookSources/9780300106367"><bdi>9780300106367</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=A+New+Handbook+of+Literary+Terms&rft.place=New+Haven%2C+CT&rft.pages=194&rft.pub=Yale+University+Press&rft.date=2007&rft.isbn=9780300106367&rft.aulast=Mikics&rft.aufirst=David&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fnewhandbookoflit0000miki&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Richardson and Johnston (1991, 97-98).</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFKydSchick1898" class="citation book cs1">Kyd, Thomas; Schick, Josef (1898). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://archive.org/details/spanishtragedya00kydgoog"><i>The Spanish tragedy, a play</i></a>. University of Michigan. London, J.M. Dent and co.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Spanish+tragedy%2C+a+play&rft.pub=London%2C+J.M.+Dent+and+co.&rft.date=1898&rft.aulast=Kyd&rft.aufirst=Thomas&rft.au=Schick%2C+Josef&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fspanishtragedya00kydgoog&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Watson-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Watson_5-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFWatson2007" class="citation book cs1">Watson, Roderick (2007). <i>The Literature of Scotland</i>. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780333666647" title="Special:BookSources/9780333666647"><bdi>9780333666647</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+Literature+of+Scotland&rft.place=Houndmills&rft.pub=Palgrave+Macmillan&rft.date=2007&rft.isbn=9780333666647&rft.aulast=Watson&rft.aufirst=Roderick&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-6"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-6">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">The first ever known full production of the text was mounted by <a href="/w/index.php?title=Biggar_Theatre_Workshop&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Biggar Theatre Workshop (page does not exist)">Biggar Theatre Workshop</a> in September 1997 under the direction of Ann Matheson. See <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/purves/SlinDrama2.pdf">Theatre in Scots</a> p.4</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-7"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-7">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/Scottishdrama.html">Association of Scottish Literary Studies</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120302162207/http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/Scottishdrama.html">Archived</a> 2012-03-02 at the <a href="/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a>, Edwin Morgan, ScotLit 20, Spring 1999</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-WalesCompanion-8"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-WalesCompanion_8-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFStephens1998" class="citation book cs1">Stephens, Meic (1998). <span class="id-lock-registration" title="Free registration required"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/newcompaniontoli0000unse"><i>The New Companion to the Literature of Wales</i></a></span>. University of Wales Press. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0708313833" title="Special:BookSources/0708313833"><bdi>0708313833</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=The+New+Companion+to+the+Literature+of+Wales&rft.pub=University+of+Wales+Press&rft.date=1998&rft.isbn=0708313833&rft.aulast=Stephens&rft.aufirst=Meic&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fnewcompaniontoli0000unse&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Deane-9"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Deane_9-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFDeane1986" class="citation book cs1">Deane, Seamus (1986). <i>A Short History of Irish Literature</i>. London: Hutchinson. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0091613612" title="Special:BookSources/0091613612"><bdi>0091613612</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=A+Short+History+of+Irish+Literature&rft.place=London&rft.pub=Hutchinson&rft.date=1986&rft.isbn=0091613612&rft.aulast=Deane&rft.aufirst=Seamus&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-ScotlandsBooks-10"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-ScotlandsBooks_10-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFCrawford2007" class="citation book cs1">Crawford, Robert (2007). <i>Scotland's Books</i>. London: Penguin. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780140299403" title="Special:BookSources/9780140299403"><bdi>9780140299403</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Scotland%27s+Books&rft.place=London&rft.pub=Penguin&rft.date=2007&rft.isbn=9780140299403&rft.aulast=Crawford&rft.aufirst=Robert&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-11"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-11">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Hornblow, Arthur, <i>A History of the Theater in America from Its Beginnings to the Present Time</i>, J. B. Lippincott, 1919, Volume 1, p. 42</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-12"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-12">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">For more information on this production's rehearsal period and performance, consult: Max Stafford-Clark, <i>Letters to George: The Account of a Rehearsal</i>, <a href="/wiki/Nick_Hern_Books" title="Nick Hern Books">Nick Hern Books</a>, London, 1997. <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-85459-317-7" title="Special:BookSources/978-1-85459-317-7">978-1-85459-317-7</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Brown2007p231-13"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Brown2007p231_13-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Brown2007p231_13-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">I. Brown, <i>The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Enlightenment, Britain and Empire (1707-1918)</i> (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0748624813" title="Special:BookSources/0748624813">0748624813</a>, p. 231.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Keay-14"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Keay_14-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Keay_14-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Keay, J. & Keay, J. (1994) <i><a href="/wiki/Collins_Encyclopaedia_of_Scotland" title="Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland">Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland</a></i>. London. HarperCollins.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-15"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-15">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/features/display.var.1589487.0.0.php"><i>Whaur’s yer Wullie noo?</i></a><sup class="noprint Inline-Template"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot" title="Wikipedia:Link rot"><span title=" Dead link tagged June 2018">permanent dead link</span></a></i><span style="visibility:hidden; color:transparent; padding-left:2px">‍</span>]</span></sup></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Brown2007pp185-6-16"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-Brown2007pp185-6_16-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-Brown2007pp185-6_16-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">I. Brown, <i>The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Enlightenment, Britain and Empire (1707-1918)</i> (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0748624813" title="Special:BookSources/0748624813">0748624813</a>, pp. 185-6.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-17"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-17">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">M. O'Halloran, "National Discourse or Discord? Transformations of <i>The Family Legend</i> by Baille, Scott and Hogg", in S-R. Alker and H. F. Nelson, eds, <i>James Hogg and the Literary Marketplace: Scottish Romanticism and the Working-Class Author</i> (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009), <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0754665690" title="Special:BookSources/0754665690">0754665690</a>, p. 43.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-18"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-18">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Dramaticus <i>The stage as it is</i> (1847)</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-19"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-19">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Brockett and Hildy (2003, 297–298).</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-20"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-20">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>Theatre and the State in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Cultivating the People</i>, Lionel Pilkington: Review by: Christopher Murray in <i>Irish University Review</i>, Vol. 32, No. 2 (Autumn - Winter, 2002), pp. 380-384</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-reinhardt526-21"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-reinhardt526_21-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Reinhardt, <i>The Costume Designs of James Robinson Planché</i>, p526–7</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Carpet-22"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Carpet_22-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFCrowther1997" class="citation web cs1">Crowther, Andrew (28 June 1997). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.gsarchive.net/html/quarrel.html">"The Carpet Quarrel Explained"</a>. The <a href="/wiki/Gilbert_and_Sullivan" title="Gilbert and Sullivan">Gilbert and Sullivan</a> Archive<span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2007-11-06</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=unknown&rft.btitle=The+Carpet+Quarrel+Explained&rft.pub=The+Gilbert+and+Sullivan+Archive&rft.date=1997-06-28&rft.aulast=Crowther&rft.aufirst=Andrew&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gsarchive.net%2Fhtml%2Fquarrel.html&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span><sup class="noprint Inline-Template"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="/wiki/Wikipedia:Link_rot" title="Wikipedia:Link rot"><span title=" Dead link tagged April 2019">dead link</span></a></i><span style="visibility:hidden; color:transparent; padding-left:2px">‍</span>]</span></sup></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-23"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-23">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFDavis2002" class="citation news cs1">Davis, Peter G (21 January 2002). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/music/classical/reviews/5596/">"Smooth Sailing"</a><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">2007-11-06</span></span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Smooth+Sailing&rft.date=2002-01-21&rft.aulast=Davis&rft.aufirst=Peter+G&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fnymetro%2Farts%2Fmusic%2Fclassical%2Freviews%2F5596%2F&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-24"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-24">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">"The Savoy Theatre", <i><a href="/wiki/The_Times" title="The Times">The Times</a></i>, 3 October 1881</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-25"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-25">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.gsarchive.net/carte/savoy/electric.html">Description of lightbulb experiment</a> in <i>The Times</i>, 28 December 1881</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-26"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-26">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Brockett and Hildy (2003, 326–327).</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-What_are_EdMusComs?-27"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-What_are_EdMusComs?_27-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">The first "Edwardian musical comedy" is usually considered to be <i><a href="/wiki/In_Town_(musical)" class="mw-redirect" title="In Town (musical)">In Town</a></i> (1892). See, e.g., Charlton, Fraser. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/fraser.charlton/edmuscom/page12/edmuscom_what.html">"What are EdMusComs?"</a> FrasrWeb 2007, accessed May 12, 2011</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-28"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-28">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Oxford Companion to English Literature.</i> (1996), p. 781.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-29"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-29">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">"English literature." <i>Encyclopædia Britannica</i>. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. <<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188217/English-literature">http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/188217/English-literature</a>>.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-30"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-30">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Kemp, Robert, <i>More that is Fresh in Drama</i>, Edinburgh Evening News, 14 August 1948</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-31"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-31">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Walker, John. (1992) <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.artdesigncafe.com/kitchen-sink-school-1992">"Kitchen Sink School"</a>. <i>Glossary of Art, Architecture & Design since 1945</i>, 3rd. ed. Retrieved 29 August 2012.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-32"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-32">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Oxford Companion to English Literature</i>, ed. Margaret Drabble (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1996), p.80.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-33"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-33">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Oxford Companion to English Literature</i>, p.80.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-34"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-34">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Stratford%20Festival">Canadian Encyclopedia - Stratford Festival</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-webbio-35"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-webbio_35-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://biography.alanayckbourn.net/index.htm">Biography on the official Alan Ayckbourn website</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20080807160544/http://biography.alanayckbourn.net/index.htm">Archived</a> 2008-08-07 at the <a href="/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a> accessed 5 January 2009</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-36"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-36">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.irishplayography.com/play.aspx?playid=3072">PlayographyIreland - Aistriúcháin</a>. Irishplayography.com (1995-11-13). Retrieved on 2013-07-29.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-37"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-37">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsC/churchill-caryl.html">Caryl Churchill - Playwright</a>. Doollee.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-29.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-autogenerated1-38"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-autogenerated1_38-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-autogenerated1_38-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.irdp.co.uk/radiodrama.htm">Tim Crook, "International radio drama"</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-39"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-39">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">"<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/jmortimer.html">John Mortimer Radio Plays</a>"; <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.filmreference.com/film/69/John-Mortimer.html">John Mortimer Biography (1923-2009)</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-40"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-40">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.suttonelms.org.uk/">RADIO DRAMA,APPLES,EKEGUSII,POTATOES,EARLY MUSIC,kiss off,misfit,former url http://web.ukonline.co.uk/suttonelms</a>. Suttonelms.org.uk. Retrieved on 2013-07-29.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-41"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-41">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Columbia encyclopedia of modern drama</i>, by Gabrielle H. Cody; "Brendan Behan" - RTÉ Archives <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="https://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/925-brendan-behan/">[1]</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-42"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-42">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a href="/wiki/J._C._Trewin" title="J. C. Trewin">J. C. Trewin</a>, "Critic on the Hearth." <i>Listener</i> [London, England] 5 Aug. 1954: 224.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-43"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-43">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite class="citation book cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WskaAQAAMAAJ"><i>British Theatrelog: Volume 1, Issue 8</i></a>. Google Books: TQ Publications. 1978. p. 21.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=British+Theatrelog%3A+Volume+1%2C+Issue+8&rft.place=Google+Books&rft.pages=21&rft.pub=TQ+Publications&rft.date=1978&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DWskaAQAAMAAJ&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-44"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-44">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.prixitalia.rai.it/2008/pdf/vincitori_edizionipassate_en.pdf">Prix Italia "PAST EDITIONS — WINNERS 1949 - 2007"</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120303114656/http://www.prixitalia.rai.it/2008/pdf/vincitori_edizionipassate_en.pdf">Archived</a> 2012-03-03 at the <a href="/wiki/Wayback_Machine" title="Wayback Machine">Wayback Machine</a></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-45"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-45">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Effingham William Wilson <i>A House for Shakespeare. A proposition for the consideration of the Nation</i> and a <i>Second and Concluding Paper</i> (1848)</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Trans-46"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Trans_46-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFWoodfield1984" class="citation book cs1">Woodfield, James (1984). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/englishtheatrein00jame/page/95"><i>English Theatre in Transition, 1881–1914: 1881–1914</i></a>. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/englishtheatrein00jame/page/95">95–107</a>. <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-389-20483-8" title="Special:BookSources/0-389-20483-8"><bdi>0-389-20483-8</bdi></a>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=English+Theatre+in+Transition%2C+1881%E2%80%931914%3A+1881%E2%80%931914&rft.pages=95-107&rft.pub=Rowman+%26+Littlefield&rft.date=1984&rft.isbn=0-389-20483-8&rft.aulast=Woodfield&rft.aufirst=James&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fdetails%2Fenglishtheatrein00jame%2Fpage%2F95&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-Winding-47"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Winding_47-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text">Findlater, Richard <i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=9149">The Winding Road to King's Reach</a></i> (1977), also in Callow. Retrieved 1 July 2008.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-48"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-48">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFDickson2011" class="citation news cs1">Dickson, Andrew (2 August 2011). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/aug/02/edinburgh-national-theatre-wales-scotland">"Edinburgh festival 2011: where National Theatres meet"</a>. <i>The Guardian</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">4 November</span> 2012</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Guardian&rft.atitle=Edinburgh+festival+2011%3A+where+National+Theatres+meet&rft.date=2011-08-02&rft.aulast=Dickson&rft.aufirst=Andrew&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fstage%2F2011%2Faug%2F02%2Fedinburgh-national-theatre-wales-scotland&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-49"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-49">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><cite id="CITEREFGardner2011" class="citation news cs1">Gardner, Lyn (1 September 2011). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2011/sep/01/welsh-theatre-theatr-genedlaethol-cymru">"Has Welsh theatre found its voice?"</a>. <i>The Guardian</i><span class="reference-accessdate">. Retrieved <span class="nowrap">4 November</span> 2012</span>.</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Guardian&rft.atitle=Has+Welsh+theatre+found+its+voice%3F&rft.date=2011-09-01&rft.aulast=Gardner&rft.aufirst=Lyn&rft_id=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fstage%2Ftheatreblog%2F2011%2Fsep%2F01%2Fwelsh-theatre-theatr-genedlaethol-cymru&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3ATheatre+of+the+United+Kingdom" class="Z3988"></span></span> </li> <li id="cite_note-cgt-50"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-cgt_50-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-cgt_50-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text">Christopher Innes, "West End" in <i>The Cambridge Guide to Theatre</i> (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 1194–1195. <link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" href="mw-data:TemplateStyles:r1238218222"><a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-521-43437-8" title="Special:BookSources/0-521-43437-8">0-521-43437-8</a>.</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-BTR-51"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-BTR_51-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AWaZ1LAFAZEC&q=lloyd+webber+%22the+most+commercially+successful+composer+in+history.%22">Sondheim and Lloyd-Webber: the new musical</a> <i><a href="/wiki/The_New_York_Times" title="The New York Times">The New York Times</a></i>.. referred to Andrew Lloyd Webber as "the most commercially successful composer in history"</span> </li> <li id="cite_note-52"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-52">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/paige/biography.shtml">BBC - Radio 2 - Elaine Paige</a> <i><a href="/wiki/BBC_Radio" title="BBC Radio">BBC Radio</a></i></span> </li> </ol></div> <div class="navbox-styles"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1129693374">.mw-parser-output .hlist dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist ul{margin:0;padding:0}.mw-parser-output .hlist dd,.mw-parser-output .hlist dt,.mw-parser-output .hlist li{margin:0;display:inline}.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline,.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist.inline ul,.mw-parser-output .hlist dl dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist dl ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist dl ul,.mw-parser-output .hlist ol dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist ol ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist ol ul,.mw-parser-output .hlist ul dl,.mw-parser-output .hlist ul ol,.mw-parser-output .hlist ul ul{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .hlist .mw-empty-li{display:none}.mw-parser-output .hlist dt::after{content:": "}.mw-parser-output .hlist dd::after,.mw-parser-output .hlist li::after{content:" · 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.navbox-even{background-color:#f7f7f7}.mw-parser-output .navbox-odd{background-color:transparent}.mw-parser-output .navbox .hlist td dl,.mw-parser-output .navbox .hlist td ol,.mw-parser-output .navbox .hlist td ul,.mw-parser-output .navbox td.hlist dl,.mw-parser-output .navbox td.hlist ol,.mw-parser-output .navbox td.hlist ul{padding:0.125em 0}.mw-parser-output .navbox .navbar{display:block;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .navbox-title .navbar{float:left;text-align:left;margin-right:0.5em}body.skin--responsive .mw-parser-output .navbox-image img{max-width:none!important}@media print{body.ns-0 .mw-parser-output .navbox{display:none!important}}</style></div><div role="navigation" class="navbox" aria-labelledby="Theatre_of_Europe" style="padding:3px"><table class="nowraplinks mw-collapsible autocollapse navbox-inner" style="border-spacing:0;background:transparent;color:inherit"><tbody><tr><th scope="col" class="navbox-title" colspan="2"><link rel="mw-deduplicated-inline-style" 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abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}@media(prefers-color-scheme:dark){html.skin-theme-clientpref-os .mw-parser-output .navbar li a abbr{color:var(--color-base)!important}}@media print{.mw-parser-output .navbar{display:none!important}}</style><div class="navbar plainlinks hlist navbar-mini"><ul><li class="nv-view"><a href="/wiki/Template:Europe_topic" title="Template:Europe topic"><abbr title="View this template">v</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-talk"><a href="/wiki/Template_talk:Europe_topic" title="Template talk:Europe topic"><abbr title="Discuss this template">t</abbr></a></li><li class="nv-edit"><a href="/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Europe_topic" title="Special:EditPage/Template:Europe topic"><abbr title="Edit this template">e</abbr></a></li></ul></div><div id="Theatre_of_Europe" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em">Theatre of Europe</div></th></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Sovereign states</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Albania&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Albania (page does not exist)">Albania</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Andorra&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Andorra (page does not exist)">Andorra</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Armenia" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Armenia">Armenia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Austria&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Austria (page does not exist)">Austria</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Azerbaijan" title="Theatre of Azerbaijan">Azerbaijan</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Belarus" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Belarus">Belarus</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Belgium&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Belgium (page does not exist)">Belgium</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Bosnia and Herzegovina (page does not exist)">Bosnia and Herzegovina</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Bulgaria&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Bulgaria (page does not exist)">Bulgaria</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Croatia" title="Theatre of Croatia">Croatia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Cyprus&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Cyprus (page does not exist)">Cyprus</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Czech_Republic" title="Theatre of the Czech Republic">Czech Republic</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Denmark" title="Theatre of Denmark">Denmark</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Estonia" title="Theatre of Estonia">Estonia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Finland&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Finland (page does not exist)">Finland</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_France" title="Theatre of France">France</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Georgia_(country)&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Georgia (country) (page does not exist)">Georgia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Germany&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Germany (page does not exist)">Germany</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Modern_Greek_theatre" title="Modern Greek theatre">Greece</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Hungary&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Hungary (page does not exist)">Hungary</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Iceland&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Iceland (page does not exist)">Iceland</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of the Republic of Ireland">Ireland</a></li> <li class="mw-empty-elt"></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Italy" title="Theatre of Italy">Italy</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Kazakhstan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Kazakhstan (page does not exist)">Kazakhstan</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Latvia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Latvia (page does not exist)">Latvia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Liechtenstein&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Liechtenstein (page does not exist)">Liechtenstein</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Lithuania" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Lithuania">Lithuania</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Luxembourg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Luxembourg (page does not exist)">Luxembourg</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Malta&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Malta (page does not exist)">Malta</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Moldova&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Moldova (page does not exist)">Moldova</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Monaco&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Monaco (page does not exist)">Monaco</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Montenegro&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Montenegro (page does not exist)">Montenegro</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_Netherlands&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of the Netherlands (page does not exist)">Netherlands</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_North_Macedonia" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of North Macedonia">North Macedonia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Norway&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Norway (page does not exist)">Norway</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Poland" title="Theatre of Poland">Poland</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Portugal&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Portugal (page does not exist)">Portugal</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Romania&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Romania (page does not exist)">Romania</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Russia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Russia (page does not exist)">Russia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_San_Marino&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of San Marino (page does not exist)">San Marino</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Serbia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Serbia (page does not exist)">Serbia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Slovakia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Slovakia (page does not exist)">Slovakia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Slovenia" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Slovenia">Slovenia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Spain&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Spain (page does not exist)">Spain</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Sweden" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Sweden">Sweden</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Switzerland&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Switzerland (page does not exist)">Switzerland</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Turkey" title="Theatre of Turkey">Turkey</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Ukraine" class="mw-redirect" title="Theatre of Ukraine">Ukraine</a></li> <li><a class="mw-selflink selflink">United Kingdom</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">States with limited<br />recognition</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-even hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Abkhazia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Abkhazia (page does not exist)">Abkhazia</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Kosovo" title="Theatre of Kosovo">Kosovo</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Northern_Cyprus&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Northern Cyprus (page does not exist)">Northern Cyprus</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_South_Ossetia&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of South Ossetia (page does not exist)">South Ossetia</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Transnistria&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Transnistria (page does not exist)">Transnistria</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Dependencies and<br />other entities</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em"> <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_%C3%85land&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Åland (page does not exist)">Åland</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_Faroe_Islands&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of the Faroe Islands (page does not exist)">Faroe Islands</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Gibraltar&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Gibraltar (page does not exist)">Gibraltar</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Guernsey&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Guernsey (page does not exist)">Guernsey</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_Isle_of_Man&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of the Isle of Man (page does not exist)">Isle of Man</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Theatre_of_Jersey" title="Theatre of Jersey">Jersey</a></li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_Svalbard&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Theatre of Svalbard (page does not exist)">Svalbard</a></li></ul> </div></td></tr></tbody></table></div>    </div><noscript><img src="https://login.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAutoLogin/start?type=1x1" alt="" width="1" height="1" style="border: none; position: absolute;"></noscript> <div class="printfooter" data-nosnippet="">Retrieved from "<a dir="ltr" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&oldid=1256764928">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom&oldid=1256764928</a>"</div></div> <div id="catlinks" class="catlinks" data-mw="interface"><div id="mw-normal-catlinks" class="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="/wiki/Help:Category" title="Help:Category">Category</a>: <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Category:Theatre_of_the_United_Kingdom" title="Category:Theatre of the United Kingdom">Theatre of the United Kingdom</a></li></ul></div><div id="mw-hidden-catlinks" class="mw-hidden-catlinks mw-hidden-cats-hidden">Hidden categories: <ul><li><a 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