Afterword

Abstract

The experience of theatre which led to my own early interest in Arden was, I imagine, a common one for my generation. As I began reading plays in my teens the serious theatre was clearly shaped by the Big Four: Osborne, Arden, Pinter and Wesker. I say read plays, rather than see them, because I lived in a provincial town where there were few opportunities for the latter. There was a large and beautiful Victorian theatre, but the plays that appeared there for pre-London tryouts and so on tended to be rather dull thrillers and farces; the most exciting evenings it offered were performances by visiting opera and ballet companies and the odd musical. The only playwright whose work I had much opportunity to see was Shakespeare; and as, at school, he was almost the only playwright studied, and certainly the only playwright we ever performed, it was Shakespeare who really shaped my ideas of what theatre ought to be. I had not much idea of how the work of the Big Four would translate to the stage.

He thinks, therefore they damn well threw him out.

(John Arden, to Rudi Dutschke)