Sir David Rippon Hare is an English playwright, screenwriter and theatre and film director. Best known for his stage work, Hare has also enjoyed great success with films, receiving two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing The Hoursin 2002, based on the novel written by Michael Cunningham, and The Readerin 2008, based on the novel of the same name written by Bernhard Schlink.
The Power of Darkness is a five-act drama by Leo Tolstoy. Written in 1886, the play's production was forbidden in Russia until 1902, mainly through the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev. In spite of the ban, the play was unofficially produced and read numerous times.
Epic theatre is a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners who responded to the political climate of the time through the creation of new political dramas. Epic theatre is not meant to refer to the scale or the scope of the work, but rather to the form that it takes. Epic theatre emphasizes the audience's perspective and reaction to the piece through a variety of techniques that deliberately cause them to individually engage in a different way. The purpose of epic theatre is not to encourage an audience to suspend their disbelief, but rather to force them to see their world as it is.
Robert Knox was a Scottish anatomist and ethnologist best known for his involvement in the Burke and Hare murders. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Knox eventually partnered with anatomist and former teacher John Barclay and became a lecturer on anatomy in the city, where he introduced the theory of transcendental anatomy. However, Knox's incautious methods of obtaining cadavers for dissection before the passage of the Anatomy Act 1832 and disagreements with professional colleagues ruined his career in Scotland. Following these developments, he moved to London, though this did not revive his career.
A political drama can describe a play, film or TV program that has a political component, whether reflecting the author's political opinion, or describing a politician or series of political events.
Howard John Brenton FRSL is an English playwright and screenwriter. While little-known in the United States, he is celebrated in his home country and often ranked alongside contemporaries such as Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, and David Hare.
Jack Shepherd is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his television roles, most notably the title role in Trevor Griffiths' series about a young Labour MP Bill Brand (1976), and the detective drama Wycliffe (1993–1998). His film appearances include All Neat in Black Stockings (1969), Wonderland (1999) and The Golden Compass (2007). He won the 1983 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a New Play for the original production of Glengarry Glen Ross.
The Romans in Britain is a 1980 stage play by Howard Brenton that comments upon imperialism and the abuse of power. It was the subject of a private prosecution brought by the conservative moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse for gross indecency.
The Joint Stock Theatre Company was founded in London 1974 by David Hare, Max Stafford-Clark Paul Kember and David Aukin. The director William Gaskill was also part of the company. It was primarily a company which presented new plays.
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark is a British theatre director.
Greenland is a 1988 play by Howard Brenton. It is a neo-Brechtian epic psychodrama with many actors, props and scene changes, on which the writer worked for seven years. It is the last of Brenton's three Utopian plays, following Sore Throats and Bloody Poetry.
Portable Theatre Company was a writer-led company that toured alternative arts venues in the UK between 1968 -1973. Their aim was to present original and provocative new writing that challenged the staid mediocrity of mainstream theatre.
Magnificence is a 1973 play by English playwright Howard Brenton. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and was next performed on the London stage in 2016, at the Finborough Theatre.
Charles Thomas Osborne was an Australian journalist, theatre and opera critic, poet and novelist. He was the assistant editor of The London Magazine from 1958 until 1966, literature director of the Arts Council of Great Britain from 1971 until 1986, and chief theatre critic of Daily Telegraph (London) from 1986 to 1991.
Naturalism is a movement in European drama and theatre that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It refers to theatre that attempts to create an illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies. Interest in naturalism especially flourished with the French playwrights of the time, but the most successful example is Strindberg's play Miss Julie, which was written with the intention to abide by both his own particular version of naturalism, and also the version described by the French novelist and literary theoretician, Emile Zola.
Weapons of Happiness is a 1976 political play by Howard Brenton, about a strike in a London crisp factory. The play makes use of a dramatic conceit whereby the Czech communist cabinet minister Josef Frank is imagined alive in the 1970s, and his hallucinations of life in Stalinist Czechoslovakia interweave with the main plot.
The Churchill Play is a play by Howard Brenton. Written in 1974, the play offers a dystopian picture of an authoritarian England ten years in the future and is set in an internment camp named after Winston Churchill. The play of the title is actually a play within a play, one put on by inmates of the camp, in which soldiers stand guard over Churchill's catafalque, only for him to rise from the dead.
Epsom Downs is a 1977 play by Howard Brenton. Taking its name from the racecourse at which it is set, the play presents a panorama of race-goers, horse-owners, bookies, jockeys, etc. on Derby Day 1977, giving it the feel of a modern city comedy.
Bloody Poetry is a 1984 play by Howard Brenton centring on the lives of Percy Shelley and his circle.
Michael Wilcox is a British playwright.