Chapter 2 Agitprop and Pageantry: Political Alliances and Cultural Tensions

Abstract

The book then moves to consider the importance of politics as a stimulus for theatre-making. It focuses specifically on agitprop as a transnational method of creating politically engaged performances, with particular reference to the work of the Workers’ Theatre Movement (and the innovations of figures such as Tom Thomas and André van Gyseghem) and its trip to the Moscow Olympiad. It then considers the intertwined histories of Russian and British pageantry/mass spectacle using Basil Dean’s 1943 Royal Albert Hall event Salute to the Red Army as a catalyst.