English drama
By the medieval period, the mummers' plays had developed, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood.
Other pageants included the story of Moses, the Procession of the Prophets, Christ's Baptism, the Temptation in the Wilderness, and the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin.
The two candidates for the earliest comedy in English Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1552) and the anonymous Gammer Gurton's Needle (c. 1566), belong to the 16th century.
During the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and then James I (1603–25), in the late 16th and early 17th century, a London-centred culture, that was both courtly and popular, produced great poetry and drama.
After the lyrical Richard II, written almost entirely in verse, Shakespeare introduced prose comedy into the histories of the late 1590s, Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. This period begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, based on Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives, which introduced a new kind of drama.
In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays: Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, as well as the collaboration Pericles, Prince of Tyre.
Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – 1632), John Fletcher (1579–1625) and Francis Beaumont (1584–1616).
Drawing on German lore, he introduced the story of Faust to England in his play Doctor Faustus (c. 1592), a scientist and magician obsessed by the thirst for knowledge and the desire to push man's technological power to its limits.
One of Beaumont and Fletcher's chief merits was that of realising how feudalism and chivalry had turned into snobbery and make-believe and that new social classes were on the rise.
Beaumont's comedy The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607) satirises the rising middle class and especially the nouveaux riches who pretend to dictate literary taste without knowing much literature at all.
Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, whose comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (c. 1607–08), satirizes the rising middle class and especially of those nouveaux riches who pretend to dictate literary taste without knowing much about literature at all.
A popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play, which had been popularised earlier in the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), and then subsequently developed by John Webster (1578–1632) in the 17th century.
[15] Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling, written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley; The Atheist's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur, first published in 1611; Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta; The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois by George Chapman; The Malcontent (c. 1603) of John Marston; and John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.
George Chapman (?1559-?1634) was a successful playwright who produced comedies (his collaboration on Eastward Hoe led to his brief imprisonment in 1605 as it offended the King with its anti-Scottish sentiment), tragedies (most notably Bussy D'Ambois) and court masques (The Memorable Masque of the Middle Temple and Lincoln's Inn), but who is now remembered chiefly for his translation in 1616 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
Wide and socially mixed audiences were attracted by topical writing and by the introduction of the first professional actresses (in Shakespeare's time, all female roles had been played by boys).
Notable heroic tragedies of this period include John Dryden's All for Love (1677) and Aureng-zebe (1675), and Thomas Otway's Venice Preserved (1682).
Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (1660–1685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court.
A change came in the Victorian era with a profusion on the London stage of farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas that competed with Shakespeare productions and serious drama by the likes of James Planché and Thomas William Robertson.
But by the end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound, and critics wondered if the cinema would replace live theatre altogether.
[18] George Bernard Shaw turned the Edwardian theatre into an arena for debate about important political and social issues, like marriage, class, "the morality of armaments and war" and the rights of women.
T. S. Eliot had begun this attempt to revive poetic drama with Sweeney Agonistes in 1932, and this was followed by The Rock (1934), Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939).
Other Important playwrights whose careers began later in the century are: Caryl Churchill (Top Girls, 1982) and Alan Ayckbourn (Absurd Person Singular, 1972).
[21] John Mortimer made his radio debut as a dramatist in 1955, with his adaptation of his own novel Like Men Betrayed for the BBC Light Programme.
But he made his debut as an original playwright with The Dock Brief, starring Michael Hordern as a hapless barrister, first broadcast in 1957 on BBC Radio's Third Programme, later televised with the same cast, and subsequently presented in a double bill with What Shall We Tell Caroline?
[24] Among the most famous works created for radio, are Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (1954), Samuel Beckett's All That Fall (1957), Harold Pinter's A Slight Ache (1959) and Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons (1954).
Beckett's radio play Embers was first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959, and won the RAI prize at the Prix Italia awards later that year.
[26] Three Girls is a three-part British television's real life drama series, written by screenwriter Nicole Taylor, and directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, that broadcast on three consecutive nights between 16 and 18 May 2017 on BBC One.
[27] the series is a dramatised version of the events surrounding the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, the mini series Three Girls attempts to create awareness about how complex criminal process of child grooming takes place while sexually abusing children [28] and describes how the authorities failed to investigate allegations of rape because the victims were perceived as unreliable witnesses.
[29] The story is told from the viewpoint of three of the victims: fourteen-year-old Holly Winshaw (Molly Windsor), sixteen-year-old Amber Bowen (Ria Zmitrowicz) and her younger sister Ruby (Liv Hill)[30][31] According to lawyers Richard Scorer & Nazir Afzal, the drama Three girls helps in building awareness around child protection issues of 21st century.
[28] While few critics including whistleblower Sara Rowbotham and few victims appreciated accuracy of depiction; Ben Lawrence in The Telegraph found it to be too timid and not going deep down to investigate & expose root causes surrounding inappropriate behavior of perpetrators of Pakistani descent fully enough.
