Bolshevism in Lancashire: British Strike Plays of the 1920s
In an article in NTQ 29 (February 1992), Steve Nicholson looked at how the Russian Revolution was portrayed in the 1920s by the Conservative theatre establishment. Usually it is the Left that is accused of simplistic theatrical agitation: but in this, the second of two articles about the right-wing political theatre of the 1920s, the author shows how plays about industrial conflict and strikes within Britain demonstrated a level of crude Conservative propaganda that has tended to go unremarked. This article has been researched largely through unpublished manuscripts in the Lord Chamberlain's collection of plays in the British Library, and derives from the author's broader study of the portrayal of Communism in the British theatre between 1917 and 1945. Steve Nicholson is currently Lecturer in Drama at the Workshop Theatre of the University of Leeds.