An Overview of London Theatre During The Last Hundred Years
April 22nd, 2008 by Classical Music Expert
Despite the predisposition to err on the side of conservatism and guaranteed box-office victory, London’s theatres especially discount London theatre still stage a wide range of plays by modern authors. Harold Pinter is known for his indistinct language and story lines; The Caretaker and The Homecoming, the latter set in north London, are two of his best-known plays. Plays by David Hare and Simon Gray are likely to be more accessible to non-theatre addicts; check National Theatre listings to see if they’re playing.
Alan Ayckbourn and Michael Frayn keep on to turn out genuinely entertaining farces; Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests are two of Ayckhourn’s finest, Noises Off and Donkey’s Years are two of Frayn’s preeminent.
If you don’t think you could manage with Shakespeare the full monty, then note that the Reduced Shakespeare Company at the Criterion has been whipping through his plays in record time for the last few years.
For London shows the signs were even now there in the 1960s when Hair and then Jesus Christ Superstar were outstanding successes. Then, during the cash-strapped 1980s, London stages started to fill up with blockbusting musicals, recognised favourites with audiences and therefore a safe bet for covering the bills. It occasionally seems as if they’re all by Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber (Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera and, of course, JCS itself) but inquiry more vigilantly and you’ll find musicals by Lionel Bart (Oliver), Boublil and Schonberg (Miss Saigon, Martin Guerre and Les Miserables), Willy Russell (Blood Brothers) and even Cole Porter revivals.
The times gone by of London theatre tickets begins and, with the coming of the new
Globe virtually ends with Shakespeare but that’s not to say other playwrights haven’t got a word in too.
By the 18th century the theatre was well conventional and largely highly regarded. These were the ages when John Gay wrote his Beggar’s Opera, a sort of Les Miserables of the 1720s set in Newgate Prison. In 1773 Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer was first staged followed in 1775 by Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals and, in 1777, The School for Scandal.
The 19th century epoch saw the great comedies of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan, hit the stage, although his unsafe popularity was soon eclipsed by dishonor, persecution and a jail sentence. George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) produced such masterpieces as Pygmalion, Major Barbara, Androcles and the Lion and Saint Joan. Shaw and Wilde were both Irish by beginning
but moved to London for much of their working lives, as had Oliver Goldsmith before them.