‘Verbatim Theatre’ has been the term utilized by Derek Paget during his extensive researches into that form of documentary drama which employs (largely or exclusively) tape-recorded material from the ‘real-life’ originals of the characters and events to which it gives dramatic shape. Though clearly indebted to sources such as the radio ballads of the 'fifties, and to the tradition which culminated in Joan Littlewood's Oh what a Lovely War, most of its practitioners acknowledge Peter Cheeseman's work at Stoke-on-Trent as the direct inspiration - in one case, as first received through the ‘Production Casebook’ on his work published in the first issue of the original Theatre Quarterly (1971). Quite simply, the form owes its present health and exciting potential to the flexibility and unobtrusiveness of the portable cassette recorder - ironically, a technological weapon against which are ranged other mass technological media such as broadcasting and the press, which tend to marginalize the concerns and emphases of popular oral history. Here, Derek Paget, who is currently completing his doctoral thesis on this subject, discusses with leading practitioners their ideas and working methods. Derek Paget teaches English and Drama at Worcester College of Higher Education, and has also had practical theatre experience ranging from community work to the West End, and from Joan Littlewood's final season at Stratford East to the King's Head, Islington.
This article compares and contrasts the ways in which two British television drama directors, Stephen Frears and Peter Kosminsky, critique political power in films screened as part of the BFI's 2009 ‘Radical Television Drama’ season. Frears’ The Deal (2003) and Kosminsky's The Government Inspector (2005) are films concerned with New Labour and its politics, and both take a provocative line towards its culture and policies. The Deal examines the party's rise to power in the 1990s, focusing on the relationship and rivalry for the party leadership between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. The Government Inspector dramatises New Labour's behaviour during the critical historical period following the September 11 attack on New York, focusing in particular on the controversial case of the arms inspector, the late Dr David Kelly. The article analyses the films as docudrama, arguing that the form has raised its cultural profile over the past 20 years. Contemporary reviewing of the two films is used to throw light on wider debates about docudrama, including the notion of ‘blurred boundaries’ between drama and documentary. The analysis of key scenes from the two films contends that there are more similarities than differences in the approaches taken by the two directors. Docudramas like these, the article concludes, have an active role to play in oppositional politics.
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