Sara Martín Alegre P08/04540/02135

Recommended Readings
Priestley,�J.�B.
(1945). 
An
Inspector Calls
.
Beckett,�S.
(1955). 
Waiting
for Godot.
Osborne,�J.
(1956). 
Look Back
in Anger
.
Pinter,�P.
(1958). 
The
Birthday Party
.
Delaney,�S.
(1958). 
A Taste of
Honey
.
Bond,�E.
(1965). 
Saved
.
Orton,�J.
(1966). 
Loot
.
Ayckbourn,�A.
(1972).
Absurd Person Singular
.
Churchill,�C.
(1982). 
Top
Girls
.
Friel,�B.
(1990). 
Dancing at
Lughnassa.
West End
Name given to the western
part of central London,
which contains some of the
best-known shopping areas
and most of the main theatres.

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© FUOC
• P08/04540/02135
22
Post-War English Literature 1945-1990
The tastes of West End audiences were conservative and the main 
innovations
in drama came from 
amateur� clubs
, which were free from the pressures
of business. Actor-managers with their own companies, such as 
Laurence
Olivier
, contributed to enlivening post-war theatre by offering alternatives to
the habitual West End fare, alternatives based mainly on the classics.
What could be seen in most West End theatres were so-called
well-made� plays
, originating in late nineteenth-century French
theatre. These were plays that centred on an upper-class hero
undergoing a crisis, which would mark his progression from ignorance
to knowledge, bound by a plot fixed by the unities of time, place and
action. Ibsen had added naturalism to the well-made play, thus opening
the way for the drama of social and political content written by