The most controversial and newsworthy plays of British theatre are a rash of rude, vicious and provocative pieces by a brat pack of twentysomethings whose debuts startled critics and audiences with their heady mix of sex, violence and street-poetry.In-Yer-Face Theatre is the first book to study this exciting outburst of creative self-expression by what in other contexts has been called Generation X, or Thatcher's Children, the 'yoof' who grew up during the last Con...

"Informative, provocative and entertaining all at the same time." - Michael BillingtonThis is a wide-ranging and accessible account of new writing in British theatre during the 2010s, written in a boldly experimental style. A guide to the key plays and playwriting innovations, it enlightens, amuses and provokes in equal measure.Across 15 chapters, each written in a different form, it takes the reader on an engaging tour of new drama in Brit...

London's West End is a global success story, staging phenomenal hit shows that have delighted millions of spectators and generated billions of pounds in revenue. In Good Nights Out, Aleks Sierz provides a thematic survey of such popular theatre shows that were enormous commercial successes over the past 75 years. He argues that these outstanding hits have a lot to say about the collective cultural, social and political attitudes and aspirations of the country, and about how our na...

First published in 2006, Alek's Sierz's The Theatre of Martin Crimp provided a groundbreaking study of one of British theatre's leading contemporary playwrights. Combining Sierz's lucid prose and sharp analysis together with interviews with Martin Crimp and a host of directors and actors who have produced the work, it offered a richly rewarding and engaging assessment of this acutely satirical playwright. The second edition additionally explores the work produced between 2006 and ...

Look Back in Anger is one of the few works of drama that are indisputably central to British culture in general, and its name is one of the most well-known in postwar cultural history. Its premiere in 1956 sparked off the first "new wave" of kitchen-sink drama and the cultural phenomenon of the angry young man. The play's anti-hero, Jimmy Porter, became the spokesman of a generation. Osborne's play is a key milestone in "new writing" for British theatre, and the Royal Court-which ...

British theatre is booming. But where do these beautiful buildings and exciting plays come from? And when did the story start? To find out we time travel back to the age of the first Queen Elizabeth in the sixteenth century, four hundred years ago when there was not a single theatre in the land. In the company of a series of well-characterised fictional guides, the eight chapters of the book explore how British theatre began, grew up and developed from the 1550s to the 1950s.The Ti...

Edited and introduced by leading cultural and theatre critic Aleks Sierz, this bold and urgent collection of contemporary plays by England's newest and most relevant young writers explores the various cultures and identities of a nation that is at once traditional, nationalistic and multicultural.Eden's Empire, by James Graham is an uncompromising political thriller exploring the events of the Suez Crisis, and the tragic story of its flawed hero – Churchill's golde...