French S Play Parade

The play charts the fortunes of a group of ATS girls from their arrival as a raw, awkward, ill-assortment of individuals to their passing-out parade as a 'perfectly drilled unit of faceless soldiers', following the shifts and tensions of their personal relationships, the comedy, drama and- in one case - eventual tragedy that occur during their period of training together. The action centres on the girls' barrack room, with small insets in adjacent places.3 women or men

It is said that British Drama was shockingly lifted out of the doldrums by the 'revolutionary' appearance of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger at the Royal Court in May 1956. But had the theatre been as ephemeral and effeminate as the Angry Young Men claimed? Was the era of Terence Rattigan and 'Binkie' Beaumont as repressed and closeted as it seems? In this bold and fascinating challenge to the received wisdom of the last forty years of theatrical history, Dan Rebellato uncovers a different story altogether. It is one where Britain's declining Empire and increasing panic over the 'problem' of homosexuality played a crucial role in the construction of an enduring myth of the theatre. By going back to primary sources and rigorously questioning all assumptions, Rebellato has rewritten the history of the Making of Modern British Drama.