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Modern British Drama
- Narrated by: Peter Saccio
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
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Publisher's Summary
Waiting for Godot. The Importance of Being Earnest. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Since Shakespeare's time, no period has produced more brilliant and various theatrical dramas in Great Britain than in the past 100 years.
Professor Saccio has selected the major British playwrights of the past century to cover Wilde, Shaw, Coward, Beckett, Osborne, Pinter, Stoppard, Churchill, and Hare. Why this roster of modern British playwrights? As you'll discover while exploring their great works in these eight lectures, some of them celebrate (or satirize) elite manners, some explore the changes in a kingdom that once ruled a quarter of the globe, some assault the sociopolitical establishment, and some probe the Existential anxiety of the modern age. "Unlike other media, dramatic art occurs in a certain place in time; in the 'here and now,'" states Professor Saccio.
You'll examine the role theater has played in British culture and society over the past 100 years. You'll witness the evolution of the stylistic conventions of the British play, from the genteel drawing-room comedies of the late 19th century to the radical political theater of the late 20th century. Throughout this brief survey of some of the great innovators of the dramatic arts of the modern era, you'll understand how and why modern British drama has changed so dramatically, and you'll realize the importance of the political and social context in which these works were written.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
What listeners say about Modern British Drama
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Erik
- 08-12-14
Impressive introduction to Modern British Drama
What did you like best about this story?
Professor Saccio provides the social background of the plays in an illuminating way without losing focus from the dramatic pieces themselves. I especially liked the way he explained how the "comedy of manners" developed over time and how the various playwrights had adopted it to the transformations of British social environment over the 20th century.
Any additional comments?
I have listened to plenty of the Great Courses Series as well as Modern Scholar titles here on audible, and this is definitely among the best ones. I am very interested in literature but have never delved deeper intro drama before, and Professor Saccio was able to provide me with great insight into the art of theater. I would also say there is enough here to interest more experienced theater-goers; the speaker introduces the playwright and plays, gives his own interpretations, but never simplifies and often takes many different perspectives into consideration before drawing any conclusions. The course really piqued my interest and made me want to go to Britain to see all these wonderful plays. I had never heard of Tom Stoppard before, for instance, but now all I can think about is how to go see "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead". Too bad I live in Sweden.
5 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Amazon Customer
- 04-16-22
Large pauses
Peter Saccio is brilliant and I greatly enjoyed this series of lectures but there are a number of chapters with very lengthy dead air time (almost 5 minutes) at the end of the lectures. This could easily be edited out but it wasn’t.
1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Kathryn
- 04-05-15
Very enjoyable!!
I really enjoyed this lecture series! Saccio is very engaging and the plays are crazy interesting!
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Overall

- Luke Beevers
- 10-15-16
Descriptive
If you ever want to know more about something and see how things in your own culture looks, have an outside experience it and have them explain it. There is no better way to understand it. Great lectures, well worth the listen
2 people found this helpful
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Overall
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- Tom Middleditch
- 08-16-18
Essential listening for any theatre person
Finished this course in a day, will relisten. As brief and effective a summary as any theatre person would want, arming people under 30 with everything that was modern theatre right up to the point they started going themselves.
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Story
Thousands of novels are published around the world every year. There are so many readily available, it would take multiple lifetimes for a single person to even read a fraction of them. But it hasn’t always been that way. While humans have always been storytellers, the novel as we recognize it today is a relatively new art form in the timeline of human culture. Of all the ways we tell stories, why has the novel become such a perennial favorite? How did the novel go from a narrative experiment with a low-brow reputation to a cultural touchstone and focal point of modern literature?
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the more I read the further behind I get
- By Bruce on 02-08-22
By: Leo Damrosch, and others
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A Day's Read
- By: The Great Courses, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth, and others
- Narrated by: Arnold Weinstein, Emily Allen, Grant L. Voth
- Length: 18 hrs and 25 mins
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Join three literary scholars and award-winning professors as they introduce you to dozens of short masterpieces that you can finish - and engage with - in a day or less. Perfect for people with busy lives who still want to discover-or rediscover-just how transformative an act of reading can be, these 36 lectures range from short stories of fewer than 10 pages to novellas and novels of around 200 pages. Despite their short length, these works are powerful examinations of the same subjects and themes that longer "great books" discuss.
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Stories not included, only discussed
- By Julie Jester on 01-15-16
By: The Great Courses, and others
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The American Civil War
- By: Gary W. Gallagher, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Gary W. Gallagher
- Length: 24 hrs and 37 mins
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Between 1861 and 1865, the clash of the greatest armies the Western hemisphere had ever seen turned small towns, little-known streams, and obscure meadows in the American countryside into names we will always remember. In those great battles, those streams ran red with blood-and the United States was truly born.
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Excellent Series
- By Rodney on 07-09-13
By: Gary W. Gallagher, and others
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Elements of Jazz: From Cakewalks to Fusion
- By: Bill Messenger, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bill Messenger
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
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Jazz is a uniquely American art form, one of America's great contributions to not only musical culture, but world culture, with each generation of musicians applying new levels of creativity that take the music in unexpected directions that defy definition, category, and stagnation. Now you can learn the basics and history of this intoxicating genre in an eight-lecture series that is as free-flowing and original as the art form itself.
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A Disappointingly Distorted, Myopic View Of Jazz
- By Parallax View on 08-18-13
By: Bill Messenger, and others
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The Life and Works of Jane Austen
- By: Devoney Looser, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Devoney Looser
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
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Born to the ranks of the lower English gentry in 1775, Jane Austen led what some have mistakenly described as an ordinary and unremarkable life - a life that ended all too soon at the age of 41. But from this life, Austen drew inspiration for six novels that all rank as literary masterpieces, including the widely beloved Pride and Prejudice. So, what do we really know about Austen’s life and influences?
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A great class!
- By Miamigrrl on 04-14-21
By: Devoney Looser, and others
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The Foundations of Western Civilization
- By: Thomas F. X. Noble, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Thomas F. X. Noble
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
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What is Western Civilization? According to Professor Noble, it is "much more than human and political geography," encompassing myriad forms of political and institutional structures - from monarchies to participatory republics - and its own traditions of political discourse. It involves choices about who gets to participate in any given society and the ways in which societies have resolved the tension between individual self-interest and the common good.
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Not Engaging or Very Interesting
- By Tommy D'Angelo on 03-05-17
By: Thomas F. X. Noble, and others
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No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life
- By: Robert C. Solomon, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert C. Solomon
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
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What is life? What is my place in it? What choices do these questions obligate me to make? More than a half-century after it burst upon the intellectual scene - with roots that extend to the mid-19th century - Existentialism's quest to answer these most fundamental questions of individual responsibility, morality, and personal freedom, life has continued to exert a profound attraction.
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Good for even a non-existentialist
- By Gary on 07-24-15
By: Robert C. Solomon, and others
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The New Testament
- By: Bart D. Ehrman, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Bart D. Ehrman
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
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Whether taken as a book of faith or a cultural artifact, the New Testament is among the most significant writings the world has ever known, its web of meaning relied upon by virtually every major writer in the last 2,000 years. Yet the New Testament is not only one of Western civilization’s most believed books, but also one of its most widely disputed, often maligned, and least clearly understood, with a vast number of people unaware of how it was written and transmitted.
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If you want a balanced overview this is not it
- By Amazon Customer on 02-27-16
By: Bart D. Ehrman, and others
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Take My Course, Please! The Philosophy of Humor
- By: Steven Gimbel, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Steven Gimbel
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
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In recent decades, the philosophy of humor has been recognized as a legitimate subfield of philosophy. The reason for this? Because to understand how humor works is to better understand the nature of human experience. In these 24 insightful, informative, illuminating, and (yes) humorous lectures, explore the philosophical theories and explanations of humor, from blatantly obvious puns to complex narratives to sly twists of language.
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funny,
- By LaPortaMA on 02-21-19
By: Steven Gimbel, and others
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Being Human: Life Lessons from the Frontiers of Science
- By: Robert Sapolsky, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: The Great Courses
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
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Understanding our humanity - the essence of who we are - is one of the deepest mysteries and biggest challenges in modern science. Why do we have bad moods? Why are we capable of having such strange dreams? How can metaphors in our language hold such sway on our actions? As we learn more about the mechanisms of human behavior through evolutionary biology, neuroscience, anthropology, and other related fields, we're discovering just how intriguing the human species is.
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Somewhat Interesting but not Quite as Advertised
- By Adam J Duhame on 10-05-13
By: Robert Sapolsky, and others
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Thinking Like an Economist: A Guide to Rational Decision Making
- By: Randall Bartlett, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Randall Bartlett
- Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
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Economic forces are everywhere around you. But that doesn't mean you need to passively accept whatever outcome those forces might press upon you. Instead, with these 12 fast-moving and crystal clear lectures, you can learn how to use a small handful of basic nuts-and-bolts principles to turn those same forces to your own advantage.
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Great for beginners, nothing you for an economist
- By V. Taras on 07-08-15
By: Randall Bartlett, and others