This book studies the plays by Alan Ayckbourn and includes a biography, a survey of the plays and detailed analysis of the most significant plays, along with discussion, where relevant, of their political, social, historical and theatrical context.

Alan Ayckbourn (Modern Dramatists)

Michael Billington

Biographies & Memoirs

PALGRAVE~MACMILLAN

State of the Nation

State of the Nation: British Theatre since 1945 looks at post-war Britain from a theatrical perspective. It examines the constant interplay between theatre and society from the resurgent optimism of the Attlee years to the satire boom of the Sixties and the growth of political theatre under Tony Blair in the post-Iraq period. Featuring detailed evaluations of writers from J. B. Priestly and Terence Rattigan to Alan Bennett and David Hare, Billington is continuously insightful and incisive.  As Britain's longest-serving theatre critic Michael Billington is uniquely placed to offer an authoritative overview of modern British theatre, and the book offers a passionate defence of the dramatist as the medium's key creative figure. Controversial, witty and informed, State of the Nation offers a fresh and challenging look at the vast upheavals that have taken place in British society, and the theatre which documents and challenges it, in the course of sixty turbulent years.   '[Billington] views his subject as a "vehicle of moral enquiry" and brings to bear wide experience, astute opinion and diligent research to write what for many might become the definitive book on theatre in the period between the departures of Churchill and Blair . . . This book should be a must for Christmas stocking of anyone interested in theatre in this country. It will give readers hours of pleasure and in many cases, the odd splutter of indignation as a forthright opinion does not fit in with their own. That is the mark of a good critic and Michael Billington is one of the very best.' British Theatre Guide

Arts & Photography

Performing Arts

Faber&Faber

Michael Billington's new book looks at post-war Britain from a theatrical perspective. It examines the constant interplay between theater and society from the resurgent optimism of the Attlee years to the satire boom of the Sixties and the growth of political theater under Tony Blair in the post-Iraq period. Written by Britain's longest-serving theater critic, the book also offers a passionate defense of the dramatist as the medium's key creative figure. Controversial, witty and informed, "State of the Nation" offers a fresh and challenging look at the vast upheavals that have taken place in Britain and its theater in the course of sixty turbulent years.

History

Europe

During the past ten years, Harold Pinter has written a new play, three film scripts, sheaves of poems, several sketches and created, with composer James Clarke, a pioneering work for radio, Voices. He has acted on stage, screen and radio, he has appeared on countless political platforms, and his work has been extensively celebrated in festivals at Dublin's Gate Theatre and New York's Lincoln Center. In 2005, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and in 2006, the European Theatre Prize. As if this were not enough, he has in the last five years twice come close to death. But he has faced hospitalisation with stoic resilience and his spirit remains as fiercely combative as ever. He wrote in 2005 to Professor Avraham Oz, one of Israel's leading internal opponents of authoritarianism: 'Let's keep fighting.'

Harold Pinter

In a career of great range and depth, Dame Peggy Ashcroft was an important part of most new movements in British theatre for more than half a century. Always preferring her place in a permanent company to personal fame, she made the Royal Shakespeare Company a living reality and helped to put the National Theatre firmly on the map when it moved to the South Bank. Apart from her excellence in classical roles, her willingness to take chances allied her to Beckett, Pinter, Duras and Albee. It was in her late seventies that she embarked on "A Passage to India" and "The Jewel in the Crown", and revealed her talent to a wider public. Michael Billington followed Dame Peggy's career closely for many years, and in this book he offers an insight into the life of a complex and private woman. Through conversations with her and contemporaries such as Sir John Gielgud, George Rylands, Sir Anthony Quayle and Sir Peter Hall, he sets out to show how she was a pivotal influence in British theatre. This edition has been revised after Dame Peggy's death, to include a postscript and updated chronology.

Peggy Ashcroft 1907-1991

Mandarin

The New Silk Road Becomes The World Land-Bridge

EIR's _ROAD-MAP_ TO THE NEW WORLD ECONOMIC ORDER! Read EIR's comprehensive study of the progress of the Eurasian Land-Bridge project which Lyndon and Helga LaRouche have championed for over 20 years. The 374-page report, entitled _The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge,_ is nothing less than a conceptual, and often physical, road-map to a new world economic order. This path is currently being charted by the nations of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), who are leading a dynamic of global optimism toward real economic development, complete with new credit institutions and major high-technology projects for uplifting all mankind. After an introduction by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the report lays out the _Metrics of Progress, based on the economic scientific principles developed by renowned physical economist Lyndon LaRouche. It then proceeds region by region, beginning with China and Russia, to present the stunning progress, and plans, which have been made toward the Eurasian Land-Bridge design that the Chinese government laid out in 1996, and other nations have begun to rally behind in recent years. The report is complete with many full-color maps of its featured development corridors.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Rachel Douglas

Science & Math

EIR News Service, Inc.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Michael Billington. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Michael Billington

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Michael Billington. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Alan Ayckbourn (Modern Dramatists)

State of the Nation

State of the Nation

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Peggy Ashcroft 1907-1991

The New Silk Road Becomes The World Land-Bridge