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This thesis explores how British Theatre represented and reacted to cultural and social changes between 1944 and 1956. It is closely linked to the oral history strand of the AHRC University of Sheffield British Library Theatre Archive Project. The five chapters focus on distinct subject areas in order to explore the vibrant diversity of the period. However, they are united by an overarching narrative which seeks to consider the relationship between memory and history. The first chapter is based on the oral history strand. It explores the different ways in which the Project's methodology has shaped both the interviewee testimony and my own research. Chapter 2 focuses on the changing historical perceptions of the popular West End plays of the day. Case studies of plays are used to compare the responses of audiences and critics in the 1940s and 50s, with the critical commentaries that surround the plays and playwrights today. The third chapter explores the relationship between BBC television drama and theatre. It assesses the impact that cross fertilisation had on both media by examining plays, productions and policies. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on two of the theatre companies of the period - Theatre Workshop and the Old Vic Theatre Company. Chapter 4 explores the impact that Theatre Workshop's early years as a touring group had on the development of the company. It draws on new oral history testimonies from former company members who joined the group in the 1940s and early 50s. Chapter 5 explores the legacy of the Old Vic Theatre Company between 1944 and 1952. It compares and contrasts testimonies from audience members, practitioners and critics in order to consider how and why certain theatrical moments appeal to the historical imagination.

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The ongoing work lead by the Records of Early English Drama project into evidence for drama in England before the closing of the London theatres in 1642 has by now shown that visits to provincial towns, and performances in the spaces made available there, represented common practice for Elizabethan acting companies. The pivotal study made by Scott McMillin and Sally-Beth MacLean, The Queen’s Men and their Plays (1998), demonstrated the potential for tracking the career and plays of one particular company, while the Shakespeare and the Queen’s Men project in Canada showed the merits of exploring the Queen’s Men’s repertory in performance. However, until now such research has been conducted without fully considering the buildings in which such plays were once performed. The specific material, social and political conditions a venue and its occupants imposed on a visiting company had direct consequences for their performances, and it is only by situating performance within extant spaces that we can begin to realise the full potential of McMillin and MacLean’s research. However, until now the methodologies to do so had not been developed. This thesis shows that by combining archaeological and theatre historical research we can better understand the nature of provincial performance, and offers strategies for the exploration of early modern texts in performance in provincial venues.

Between 1808 and 1814 England was committed to an expensive and bloody campaign against the French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The Peninsular War, as it came to be known, was initially celebrated as a war of national independence that attracted widespread support. Soon after, it was characterised by political scandal and public controversy. Literary scholars have devoted much attention to the political, social and cultural effects of the French Revolution, but have written surprisingly little about the later years of the campaign against Napoleonic France. The principle objective of this thesis is to offer the first in-depth study of English theatre during the Peninsular War. It considers the most popular plays in performance, and asks what their staging, publication, and reception history reveal about a nation’s literary tastes and its political self-awareness. Sheridan’s Pizarro, a play about the Spanish conquest of Peru, was one of the most successful plays on the Romantic stage. A close analysis of this play considers its popularity between 1799 and 1815, and what it suggests about the flexibility of the contemporary repertoire system. Audiences’ ability to ascribe topical inflections to old plays helps explain the demand for Shakespeare and the bard’s political import to wartime audiences. This thesis explores the London patent stages and popular minor theatres, where programmes were restricted to song, dance, and spectacle. It also offers a case study of provincial theatre in Bristol, underscoring the significant limitations in assumptions that the metropolitan stage was representative of national trends. Archival research on the London and Bristol stages has been crucial to this study, which is based on an examination of playbills, memoranda, letters, playtexts, and prints. The newsprint and cartoons discussed offer an important political and historical framework, suggestive of the cultural expectations likely to have influenced contemporary playgoers.