State of the Nation

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.