Changing Stages

An epic television series about the British theatre in the 20th century ought not to be difficult, given that theatre is what we do best and that no one of the author-makers, Sir Richard Eyre, is an ex-National Theatre director, while the others, Nicholas Wright, has long worked there as a dramatist and script adviser. We've yet to see the new BBC2 television series, but the book of it augurs wel; Eyre and Wright offer an unashamedly personal gallop though the century, focusing in those they admire for example, (Brecht, Beckett, and more bizarrely Ken Campbell), and giving precious short shrift to those they don't. Coward and Rattigan get cursory nods, and there are some daft generalizations, notably that 'British musicals of the 40s and 50s were wrapped in cosy parochialism', which is fine if (as the authors do) you glance briefly at only Julian Slade and Sandy Wilson; but the statement goes horribly wrong if you start thinking about IRMA LA DOUCE or EXPRESSO BONGO. Cosy? Parochial? Not in fact. Inevitably, Eyre and Wright are men in a hurry; 100 years in 200 pages suggests that their television masters kept all eyes on the clock. Nevertheless, as a brisk introcuction to the greatest acting and writing theatrical century ever known worldwide, this book works well enough. The two authors write seamlessly, and if their opinions are often as debatable as their conclusions, well, it's as good a place as any to start an argument; they are very seldom actually wrong, just sometimes wrong-headed. Then again, they didn't ask me to make the series. Review by SHERIDAN MORLEY Editor's note: SHERIDAN MORLEY is the drama critic of the Spectator and the International Herald Tribune. (Kirkus UK)