Changing Stages: A View of British Theatre in the Twentieth Century

In 1997 Sir Richard Eyre was invited to write and present a series of programmes for the BBC about the history of the British theatre in the twentieth century. He decided to write a book first and then to base his TV series upon it. This is that book.Together with Nicholas Wright, an associate director of the Royal National Theatre during Eyre's ten-year directorship, he has written what they describe as 'a partial, personal and unscholarly view of the century's theatre.'The authors state their credo at the outset: that the greatest asset to the British theatre is the English language, which, of course, we share with the Irish and the Americans. This asset is in turn magnified by the 'miraculous accident' that is Shakespeare - 'the DNA of British theatre'. Changing Stages traces the way in which Shakespeare's plays have been used as nationalistic pageants, star vehicles, and contemporary metaphors, mirroring changes in society over the century.