Matter

Abstract

In 1968 Arden and D’Arcy wrote a play about Nelson, The Hero Rises Up. It was performed at the Roundhouse, a theatre which had strong links with the New Wave of the 50s and latterly with the young underground, and did not go on without a certain amount of struggle between the playwrights and their management, the Institute for Contemporary Arts. In 1970 Terence Rattigan, the strongest and most enduring pillar of the established theatre throughout all the changes of the preceding decade, wrote a play about Nelson, A Bequest to the Nation; it was performed at the Haymarket, one of London’s largest and most beautiful commercial theatres. To look at these plays side by side is to see the debate about theatre initiated at

… We are the iron shield

Screwed tight upon the buried face below:

John Arden sees us: we see him: we know.

(John Arden, Here I Come)