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Dan Rebellato

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    • Complete List of Plays
    • 7 Ghosts
    • Cavalry
    • Chekhov in Hell
    • Dead Souls
    • Emily Rising
    • Here's What I Did With My Body One Day
    • Killer
    • Mile End
    • Negative Signs of Progress
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    • Complete List of Publications
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    • No Theatre Guild Attraction Are We
    • On Churchill's Influences
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Absolute Hell - British Theatre after the Blitz

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I'm chairing a study day at the National Theatre on 15 May 2-5pm on British theatre in the 1940s to coincide with the new production of Rodney Ackland's extraordinary Absolute Hell. The play premiered in the early 1950s under the title The Pink Room and was denounced by critics and rival producers. 'Binkie' Beaumont called it a libel against this nation and Harold Hobson wrote  a vicious review declaring 'the audience had the impression of being present, if not at the death of talent, at least at its very serious illness'. It was a cruel remark and it killed Ackland's confidence. He pretty well stopped writing for three decades. It was only in the late eighties when a revived and uncensored version of the play - its polymorphous perversity restored - went on at the Orange Tree under the new title Absolute Hell. It was then televised and then came to the National with a lead performance by Judi Dench (who had also taken the part on TV). It's one of the great rediscoveries of that forgotten period.

I'll be talking about that and other gems of the period with invited guests and actors from the Absolute Hell company, who will perform extracts from the plays.

Tickets are £30 with concessions at £20 and a special concessionary rate for students at £7.50. You can book them HERE.

November 21, 2017 by Dan Rebellato.
  • November 21, 2017
  • Dan Rebellato
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Dan Rebellato

playwright, teacher, academic

 

You may be here because you’ve come across a book, or play, or article of mine and you want to know more. Maybe you’re a student or a colleague or a friend or an acquaintance and you want to find out more about me. Maybe you are gathering ammunition for a vicious ad hominem attack that will expose me for the charlatan that I am.  

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  • News
  • Spilled Ink
    • Complete List of Plays
    • 7 Ghosts
    • Cavalry
    • Chekhov in Hell
    • Dead Souls
    • Emily Rising
    • Here's What I Did With My Body One Day
    • Killer
    • Mile End
    • Negative Signs of Progress
    • My Life Is a Series of People Saying Goodbye
    • Restless Dreams
    • Slow Air
    • Slow Beasts
    • Static
    • Theatremorphosis
    • You & Me
    • Zola: Blood, Sex & Money
    • Complete List of Publications
    • 1956 and All That
    • Cambridge Companion to British Theatre since 1945
    • Contemporary European Playwrights
    • Contemporary European Theatre Directors
    • Modern British Playwriting 2000-2009
    • No Theatre Guild Attraction Are We
    • On Churchill's Influences
    • Paris Commune
    • Playwriting
    • Sarah Kane before Blasted
    • Sarah Kane Documentary
    • The Suspect Culture Book
    • Theatre &
    • Theatre & Globalization
    • When We Talk of Horses
    • Writ Large
  • Stage Directions
  • Wilding Audio
  • Links
  • About
  • Contact

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