Played in Britain

Played in Britain
Author: Kate Dorney
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2013-05-14
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1408189631

Published in collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Musuem, Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays explores the best and most influential plays from 1945 to date. Fully illustrated with photos from the V&A's collections and featuring a foreword by Richard Griffiths O.B.E., the book provides a sumptuous treat for theatre-lovers. It was awarded the 2014 David Bradby Award for research by the Theatre and Performance Research Association. Opening with J. B. Priestley's classic play from 1946, An Inspector Calls, and ending with Laura Wade's examination of class privilege and moral turpitude in Posh over sixty years later, Played in Britain offers a visual history of post-war theatre on the British stage. Arranged chronologically the featured plays illustrate and respond to a number of themes that animate post-war society: censorship and controversy; race and immigration; gender and sexuality; money and politics. An essay on each period first sets the context and explores trends, while the commentary accompanying each play illuminates the plot and themes, considers its original reception and subsequent afterlife, and finishes by suggesting other plays to explore. Photographs from the V&A's extensive collection illustrate each play, providing further insight into stage and costume designs, and include iconic images from the premieres of major plays such as Waiting for Godot and Look Back in Anger. Illustrated throughout with stage production photography, Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays presents a unique and visually stunning panorama of key dramatic works produced in Britain over the past seventy years. From An Inspector Calls to The Rocky Horror Show, or Abigail's Party to Waiting for Godot, fresh light is thrown on the impact, aesthetics and essence of these key plays.

Played in London

Played in London
Author: Simon Inglis
Publisher: Played in Britain
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2014
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781848020573

From its first century Roman amphitheatre to the 21st century Olympic Stadium at Stratford, London has always been a city of spectacles and sporting fever. Profusely illustrated with detailed maps and in-depth research, Played in London is the most ambitious offering yet from the acclaimedPlayed in Britain series. Capital sport guaranteed.

Sport and the Home Front

Sport and the Home Front
Author: Matthew Taylor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2020-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000071367

Sport and the Home Front contributes in significant and original ways to our understanding of the social and cultural history of the Second World War. It explores the complex and contested treatment of sport in government policy, media representations and the everyday lives of wartime citizens. Acknowledged as a core component of British culture, sport was also frequently criticised, marginalised and downplayed, existing in a constant state of tension between notions of normality and exceptionality, routine and disruption, the everyday and the extraordinary. The author argues that sport played an important, yet hitherto neglected, role in maintaining the morale of the British people and providing a reassuring sense of familiarity at a time of mass anxiety and threat. Through the conflict, sport became increasingly regarded as characteristic of Britishness; a symbol of the ‘ordinary’ everyday lives in defence of which the war was being fought. Utilised to support the welfare of war workers, the entertainment of service personnel at home and abroad and the character formation of schoolchildren and young citizens, sport permeated wartime culture, contributing to new ways in which the British imagined the past, present and future. Using a wide range of personal and public records – from diary writing and club minute books to government archives – this book breaks new ground in both the history of the British home front and the history of sport.

Played at the Pub

Played at the Pub
Author: Arthur R. Taylor
Publisher: Historic England
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2009
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN:

A definitive and entertaining examination of the games played in Britain's pubs, both historic and contemporary, popular and obscure.

Played in Manchester

Played in Manchester
Author: Simon Inglis
Publisher: Historic England
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2004
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Britain's sporting heritage is unrivalled. But what of sport's architectural heritage? 'Played in Manchester' is the first of a series of titles celebrating this significant, yet often overlooked, aspect of our social and cultural history.

Pay Up and Play the Game

Pay Up and Play the Game
Author: Wray Vamplew
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2004-01-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521892308

This 1988 book presents an analysis of the emergence of mass spectator sport during the years prior to World War I.

Sport and the British

Sport and the British
Author: Richard Holt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 428
Release: 1990
Genre: Great Britain
ISBN: 9780192852298

This lively and deeply researched history - the first of its kind - goes beyond the great names and moments to explain how British sport has changed since 1800, and what it has meant to ordinary people. It shows how the way we play reflects not just our lives as citizens of a predominantlyurban and industrial world, but what is especially distinctive about British sport. Innovators in abandoning traditional, often brutal sports, and in establishing a code of `fair play', the British were also pioneers in popular sports and in the promotion of organized spectator events.Modern media coverage of sport, gambling, violence and attitudes towards it, nationalism, and the role of sport in sustaining male identity are also explored, and the book is rich in illuminating and entertaining anecdotes, which it combines with a serious historical understanding of a fascinatingsubject.

England, England

England, England
Author: Julian Barnes
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2009-01-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030755595X

BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the internationally acclaimed bestselling author The Sense of an Ending comes a "wickedly funny” novel (The New York Times) about an idyllic land of make-believe in England that gets horribly and hilariously out of hand. Imagine an England where all the pubs are quaint, where the Windsors behave themselves (mostly), where the cliffs of Dover are actually white, and where Robin Hood and his merry men really are merry. This is precisely what visionary tycoon, Sir Jack Pitman, seeks to accomplish on the Isle of Wight, a "destination" where tourists can find replicas of Big Ben (half size), Princess Di's grave, and even Harrod's (conveniently located inside the tower of London). Martha Cochrane, hired as one of Sir Jack's resident "no-people," ably assists him in realizing his dream. But when things go awry, Martha develops her own vision of the perfect England. Julian Barnes delights us with a novel that is at once a philosophical inquiry, a burst of mischief, and a moving elegy about authenticity and nationality.

Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America

Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America
Author: Ann R. Hawkins
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2021-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1438485565

A vital part of daily life in the nineteenth century, games and play were so familiar and so ubiquitous that their presence over time became almost invisible. Technological advances during the century allowed for easier manufacturing and distribution of board games and books about games, and the changing economic conditions created a larger market for them as well as more time in which to play them. These changing conditions not only made games more profitable, but they also increased the influence of games on many facets of culture. Playing Games in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America focuses on the material and visual culture of both American and British games, examining how cultures of play intersect with evolving gender norms, economic structures, scientific discourses, social movements, and nationalist sentiments.