Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers

<p><i>The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers</i> provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream including West End success while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years.</p><br/><p>It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play <i>Welcome Home Jacko </i>which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's <i>Chiaroscuro</i> examines debates about the politics of black mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's <i>Talking in Tongues</i> engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britian and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama <i>Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads</i> exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004 <i>Fix Up</i> about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut <i>Gone Too Far!</i> which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. </p><br/><p>Edited by Lynnette Goddard this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.</p>