Barry Reckord, Skyvers

 1944: Education Act—universal secondary education  End of WWII—millions of citizens in uniform  Labour elected: creation of welfare state NHS (1948) Nationalisation of industry  High-water mark of British influence  1948: HMT Empire Windrush as harbinger of widespread immigration

A canal wharf. Evening. Hurst and Attercliffe are playing cards on the top of a side-drum. A few yards away Sparky stands, as though on guard, clapping himself to keep warm. There is a pile of three or four heavy wooden boxes with the WD broad arrow stencilled on them, and a lantern set on top. Sparky Brr, oh a cold winter, snow, dark. We wait too long, that's the trouble. Once you've started, keep on travelling. No good sitting to wait in the middle of it. Only makes the cold night colder. (He sings) : One day I was drunk, boys, on the Queen's Highway When a recruiting party come beating that way. I was enlisted and attested before I did know And to the Royal Barracks they forced me to go. Brr! And they talk of the Crimea! Did I ever tell you that one about the field kitchens at Sebastopol? Well, there was this red-haired provost-sarnt, y'see … and then the corporal-cook – now he'd got no hair at all … now the Commissary in that Regiment was – oh … (He finds no one paying attention.) Who's winning? (pg. 103)

 English Stage Company at Royal Court Theatre (Wesker, Arden, Jellicoe, Churchill, Ravenhill, Kane)  Look Back in Anger  Suez Crisis: confirmation of decline of British power  Hungarian Uprising: Cold War as stalemate

Oh, yes. There's a Vaughan Williams. Well, that's something, anyway. Something strong, something simple, something English. I suppose people like me aren't supposed to be very patriotic. Somebody said – what was it – we get our cooking from Paris (that's a laugh), our politics from Moscow, and our morals from Port Said. Something like that, anyway. Who was it? (Pause.) Well, you wouldn't know anyway. I hate to admit it, but I think I can understand how her Daddy must have felt when he came back from India, after all those years away. The old Edwardian brigade do make their brief little world look pretty tempting. All homemade cakes and croquet, bright ideas, bright uniforms. Always the same picture: high summer, the long days in the sun, slim volumes of verse, crisp linen, the smell of starch. What a romantic picture. Phoney too, of course. It must have rained sometimes. Still, even I regret it somehow, phoney or not. If you've no world of your own, it's rather pleasant to regret the passing of someone else's. I must be getting sentimental. But I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age – unless you're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans. That's a thought isn't it?

 Edward Bond, Saved  1967: renewal of charter of Arts Council Provincial theater expands Expansion also in Scotland, Wales

[pg. 88 scan]

 Does the play possess a consistent plot?  Is this plot fulfilled?  Sequence Sequential Non-sequential Sequence unclear  What part of the play’s plot occurs onstage? What part takes place offstage? Why does the play choose this particular part of the plot—why significant?

 Does the play assign class to the characters? (If not: significant?)  To what social classes do the various characters belong, and how are these expressed? Speech Embodiment Action Attention of play  How, if at all, is the audience addressed in regards to class?  How does class intersect with gender?

 Does the play specify gender for its characters?  How are the play’s characters divided by gender? Are the opportunities for performance divided by gender?  How, if at all, is the audience addressed in regards to gender?  How does gender intersect with class?