Product Description: Having surveyed post-war British drama in State of the Nation, Michael Billington now looks at the global picture. In this provocative and challenging new book, he offers his highly personal selection of the 101 greatest plays ranging from the Greeks to the present-day...read more

Product Description: Michael Billington, having carefully chosen a selection from the DNB of approximately 100 biographies on a variety of prominent figures in theatre and film, has created a lively and enjoyable anthology, giving an insight into the changing face of the worlds of stage and screen in Britain during the twentieth century...read more

Product Description: One Night Stands is Michael Billington’s own selection of theatre reviews from his twenty years of writing for the Guardian from 1971 to 1991. Arranged chronologically, with a 5,000 word introduction on the role of the critic, these reviews and occasional "think pieces" add up to an authoritative yet highly personal history of British theatre over two vital decades at the end of the 20th century...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Harold Pinter is our foremost living dramatist; and in this ground-breaking book - the first authorized biographical study - Michael Billington examines Pinter's work in the context of his life. Pinter's plays, including such acknowledged masterpieces as The Caretaker and The Homecoming, are subjected to close textual scrutiny and are seen to spring from a mixture of experience, memory and the unfettered poetic imagination. Billington's book also demolishes the myth that Pinter's political commitment is either belated or aesthetically detrimental; the dramatist is seen from the outset as a vehement opponent of authoritarian structures.

Product Description: In 1991, Michael Billington celebrated twenty years as a drama critic for "The Guardian." "One Night Stands" is his own selection from his writings over that period -- a period of immense turmoil, controversy, and achievement in the theatre...read more

Product Description: A biography of Dame Peggy Ashcroft who, the author contends, represents the heart of British theatre. This book encompasses not only her most important roles but also the part she has played in new movements in British theatre over the past 50 years...read more

Product Description: In this revised edition, Michael Billington has brought his book right up-to-date, with a discussion of all Ayckbourn's plays since 1983, including Henceforward and Man of the Moment.

A guide to the history, forms, techniques, artists, and appreciation of the performing arts including plays, opera, concerts, ballet and dance, mime, musicals, variety, caboret, magic, circus, puppetry, pantomime, and jazz and pop

Gathers little known facts about theater history, actors, actresses, plays, playwrights, musicals, comedians, theater companies and directors, and critics