Buffoonery and Easy Sentiment

CHRISTOPHER FITZ-SIMON is a former Artistic Director of the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, the Irish Theatre Company and the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.Among his books are THE BOYS, a biography of the Dublin Gate Theatre’s Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLíammóir - ‹A really wonderful book› (Bruce Arnold, Irish Independent); ‹Beautifully written, diligently researched, sometimes sad, often hilarious› (Keith Baxter, Daily Telegraph); ‹By far the most wideranging and atmospheric description of Dublin’s wartime theatre› (Clair Wills in That Neutral Island); and ELEVEN HOUSES, a memoir of the 1940s - ‹Christopher Fitz-Simon’s wry and dispassionate approach keeps the narrative bracing› (Patricia Craig, Times Literary Supplement); ‹The sense of total recall is astonishing…it is painfully funny› (Roy Foster, Irish Times).

• CONTENTS: THE BACKGROUND TO PERFORMANCE - THE PLAYWRITING TRADITION - A PATRIOTIC (OR SUBVERSIVE) THEATRE - HUBERT O’GRADY: REFORMER DISGUISED AS A GOMMOCH - J.W. WHITBREAD: ENTREPRENEUR IN JOHN BULL’S OTHER ISLAND - TRUE GREEN: WHITBREAD’S IRISH HEROES - TRULY IRISH: A CORNUCOPIA OF PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS - QUASI IRISH: A GALLERY OF PLAYS BY ENGLISH AND AMERICAN AUTHORS