Alternatives within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatres in post-war Britain

Dimple Godiwala

Dec 2008 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this eBook

Alternatives Within the Mainstream II follows from the first volume’s dedication to a critical appreciation of and a tracing of trajectories of the theatres of our Others on the British stage. The first volume Alternatives Within the Mainstream: British Black and Asian Theatres traced a history of Black and Asian British plays, playwrights, theatre companies and theatre voices. The two volumes celebrate the plurality on the post-war British stage in terms of class, gender, race and sexualities.

Alternatives Within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatres in Post-war Britain is an introduction to queer sexualities and their presence on the post-war British stage. From an introduction which addresses the possibilities of an undoing of repressiveness in desiring another, this volume charts a history of queer on the British stage, from a climate of sexual repressiveness and criminalisation, to a period of legal acceptance of homosexual desire. It covers gay, les, trans and queer British theatres, the influence of American queer theatre, AIDS consciousness, black queer theatre and television drama. Alternatives Within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatres in Post-war Britain is aimed as an introductory text which introduces the several plays, playwrights, theatre companies and queer theorists to students and scholars of contemporary queer British theatres.

This book is dedicated to Anthony Blair and the Labour government for bringing in the Civil Partnerships Act.

About the author

Dimple Godiwala is the author of the monographs Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream since c. 1980 (New York & Oxford: Peter Lang, 2003), and Queer Mythologies: the Original Stageplays of Pam Gems (Bristol & Portland: Intellect, 2006). She has previously edited the first volume Alternatives within the Mainstream: British Black and Asian Theatres (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006). This volume, Alternatives within the Mainstream II: Queer Theatres in Post-war Britain, has contributions by the editor, Dimple Godiwala, and Selina Busby, Paul T. Davies, Sarah Jane Dickenson, Kate Dorney, Stephen Farrier, Deirdre Heddon, Kathy McKean, Catherine MacNamara, Simon O’Corra, Christopher Pullen, Tony Purvis, Ian Spiby, Kathleen Starck, Ashley Tellis and Victor Ukaegbu.