Michael Billington, State of the Nation: British Theatre Since 1945 (Faber and Faber, 2007)

Aleks Sierz and Lia Ghilardi, The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre: The First Four Hundred Years (Oberon Books, 2015)

Although very different books, taken together Michael Billington’s State of the Nation and Aleks Sierz and Lia Ghilardi’s The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre provide a comprehensive introduction to the history of British theatre.  The Sierz and Gilardi book is intended for younger audiences, but has plenty of useful information for everyone.  It suggests that British theatre began in the Elizabethan era in the mid-16^th century (1558-1603), and then takes the story up to the mid-twentieth century.  Michael Billington starts his story in the mid-twentieth century and takes it up to the early 2000s.  Both books chart the ups and downs of British theatre over time, and make connections to wider social and political events. 

The Time Traveller’s Guide divides the history of British theatre into eight periods, and in each period offers short biographical sketches of some of the major players.

Elizabethan Theatre (1550-1603) (Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare)

Jacobean Theatre (1603-1642) (Ben Jonson, John Webster)

Restoration Theatre (1660-1714) (George Etherege, William Wycherley, Aphra Behn, William Congreve)

Georgian Theatre (1714-1780) (John Gay, (David Garrick), Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Regency Theatre (1780-1837)

Victorian Theatre (1837-1901) (Oscar Wilde)

Edwardian Theatre (1901-1918) (George Bernard Shaw)

Modern Theatre (1918-1955) (Noel Coward, Terence Rattigan)

Billington adopts a similarly chronological approach, although his time frames are obviously much shorter. 

Many common themes stood out as I read the two books.  There has always been a strong tension between top down ‘state subsidised’ theatre (initially royal patronage) and bottom-up commercial theatre, although there have also been lots of interactions.  This attests to the complexity of the process of putting on a play: it needs funding, a building (initially outdoors), scenery, lighting, actors, a director, a writer, critics, and above all an audience.  All of these elements need to come together for a play to be successful, and these elements have changed over time.  Another important theme is the importance of international influences on the history of British theatre.  At least three of the fourteen playwrights mentioned by Sierz and Ghilardi are Irish, and others (e.g. Wycherley, who spent time in France) were strongly influenced by continental trends.  Ibsen, Chekov, Brecht, Beckett, etc. all had an important influence on British theatre.  Billington’s book is structured on the idea that theatre both reflects and influences broader social and political trends, perhaps to a greater degree than other art forms.  This perhaps explains the importance of control and censorship (and its lifting) in the history of British theatre.  Another important theme is the relationship between popular theatre and ‘art’ theatre, which was particularly prominent, for example, in the 1980s. 

What does the history of British theatre have to do with religion, environment, and history?  These books have been holiday reading, and I was looking for something a little different.  But as I’m studying for self-supporting ministry in the Church of England, I’m becoming increasingly aware of its theatricality.  And lecturing ‘on stage’ obviously has some connections to acting and the theatre.  I’m also really interested in the idea of theatre as a social mirror.  Within this, there has frequently been a strong antagonism between the Church and Theatre, with Christianity often on the side of censorship (I’m sure there are some interesting books about the history of the relationship between theatre and religion, e.g. David V. Mason’s The Performative Ground of Religion and Theatre [2018]).  It would be interesting to spend some time reflecting with theatre people about what happens in a Church.   

What is polar history?  This is a question we’re asking in the introduction to Cambridge History of the Polar regions volume that we’re working on at the moment.  Like many things, we know what we mean by ‘polar regions’, but pinning down a precise definition is more difficult.  The act of bringing together the Arctic and Antarctica into a single volume is problematic in a number of ways, and acknowledging these problems helps to highlight some of the contradictions and tensions inherent in the idea of ‘polar history’.  Please get in touch if you have any thoughts on the meaning of polar history. 

James Martin, SJ, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life (Harper One: New York, 2012)

This is the book that introduced me to Jesuit spirituality while I was living in Colorado.  I can’t remember if I read it just before or just after going on a retreat at the Sacred Heart retreat house in Sedalia, but I do know that the book had a big impact on me.  Although I’m not a Roman Catholic, I’m attracted to the Jesuit idea of being a ‘contemplative in action’, and I find Jesuit spirituality very accessible.  Perhaps this sense of accessibility was helped by reading this book.  Written by the editor of the Jesuit America magazine, the goal of this book is to present Jesuit beliefs to a wide audience and show the relevance to ‘real life’. 

Following a brief introduction to the history of Ignatius of Loyola and the foundation of the Society of Jesus in the Catholic Reformation of the C.16^th, the book focuses on the practical aspects of the Jesuit spirituality.  It introduces the Jesuit daily Examen, the Spiritual Exercises, various Jesuit approaches to prayer, the importance of detachment, the ideas of consolation and desolation at the heart of Jesuit decision making, and various other aspects of Jesuit faith and practice.  These insights are illustrated using examples from James Martin’s own life, and stories from friends and from the Jesuit tradition.  Occasionally the anecdotes can get a little repetitive and make for quite a long book.  But The Jesuit Guide is engaging and insightful throughout.  As I pursue a vocation in self-supporting ministry in the Church of England, there is much that is useful in this book, not least the importance of work to Christian faith, which is discussed in the final substantive chapter: ‘Be Who You Is!’ 

Zadie Smith, On Beauty (Penguin, 2005)

This is the first Zadie Smith novel that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it.  It is mostly based at the fictional Wellington College near Boston and offers an insightful portrayal of academic life.  There are two main families in the book: the Belsey family and the Kipps family.  The Belsey family consists of Howard, a white English academic, his African American wife Kiki and three children, Jerome, Zora, and Levi.  The Belsey family is firmly ensconced in the life of the university and its liberal attitudes.  While the Kipps family – Monty, Carlene, Victoria, and Mickael – is also rooted in academia through Monty’s work as a professor, they are originally from the Caribbean and, at least on the surface, their values are conservative and Christian.  The two families become increasingly connected through the book, as Monty moves to Wellington College and seeks to impose a conservative agenda onto the liberal life of the university. 

On Beauty, apparently, was written as an homage to E.M. Forster’s Howards End.  Much of the book focuses on race in Anglo-American society, especially academia.  Although written fifteen years ago, it seems very contemporary in its discussions of ‘no platforming’, affirmative action, and power-abusive sexual relations (perhaps highlighting that relatively little progress has been made).  The slightly strange friendship that develops between Carlene Kipps and Kiki Belsey offers a glimpse of authenticity, as does the raw political rage of the Haitian group that Live Belsey gets involved with.  But the lack of authenticity demonstrated by many of the characters is often also quite believable.  I liked the character of Zora Belsey, for example, and could imagine the swimming and study routine she describes.  In contrast, Monty Kipps ends up being quite a shallow and stereotypical character, as does his daughter Victoria in a different way.  The association of Christianity with the hypocrisy of Monty Kipps, is an easy dig, but the faith of Jerome Belsey offers something a little more genuine, especially as the novel develops.  On Beauty is a compelling novel, which left me wanting to read more books written by Zadie Smith. 

Jini Reddy, Wanderland: A Search for Magic in the Landscape (Bloomsbury, 2020)

What does it mean for a landscape to be magical?  Jini Reddy’s Wanderland is simultaneously a search for magic in the landscape and a search for belonging.  As someone born in Britain to South Asian parents from South Africa who grew up in Canada and now lives in London, Reddy is well travelled and multicultural.  But she is also looking for connection to place.  This sense of connection does not come from the exclusive idea of a ‘mythical landscape’, which Reddy contrasts starkly with a magical landscape.  This contrast is explained most clearly towards the end of the book (248-249):

What is the mythic landscape anyway?  The features of land, river, sky that become associated with stories of heroism and courage?  I have to look these things up, for they are not native to me.  What is so wrong, I ask myself for the umpteenth time, with wanting to connect with the land on your own terms?  I am all for operating in a world of spirt, of having a direct experience of the magical, of the Other, as the indigenous people from all cultures have done.  But which specific culture am I meant to identify with?  If you come from a multicultural background, it isn’t an easy question to answer (248). 

In contrast, a magical landscape is much more inclusive: 

A quest for the magical feels to me inclusive, open to anyone of any culture, any background.  It could include the mthyic landscape of this land, and all the mythical characters and ‘players’ and stories if you wanted it to, but it doesn’t have to.  It could be about connecting with mystery, seeing things with the eyes of wonder, the eyes of a child – no cultural baggage attached.  That is much easier to access (249). 

I like this contrast, and I like the ‘take it or leave it’ attitude towards the mythical that is included in Reddy’s understanding of the magical landscape.  Much of the book does engage with mythical landscape, albeit frequently in highly ambivalent ways. 

It’s not entirely clear where Christianity fits into the ‘mythical’ landscape that Reddy is challenging.  She’s clearly not comfortable with the Christian faith, although she’s open to experimentation, as demonstrated by her first visit to Lindisfarne.  There are several comments about the imperial dimensions of Christianity, and the fact that Christians attacked pagans in Britain as well as around the world.  But it tend to be the ‘Arthurian’ myths and legends she is most sceptical of. 

In response to a comment about sycamores being non-native ‘bullies’, there is a really interesting discussion of non-native trees: 

I have always felt uncomfortable with the whole ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ trees talk.  If you were to replace the word ‘tree’ with people it would all start to sound ominous.  It may feel invasive, but it’s hardly the fault of the tree.  It is only doing what it is hardwired to do: grow.  I know that native species are a part of the local ecosystem and have lived for thousands of years in perfect harmony with their environment.  A non-native tree is a foreigner tree, an outlier, an interloper.  I know the mantra – I’ve heard it intoned often enough.  (123)

Reddy goes on to describe taking part in a conservation project in the wilds of Scotland that involved killing trees through ring-barking (‘In the end I skulked off from the group by way of protest.  I will always have a place in my heard for the refugees and the migrants of the wooded world’ [123]).  Race and gender are both present throughout the book, but neither dominate the narrative. 

The contrast between urban and rural is also present throughout the book, but in a way that doesn’t create a binary contrast.  Reddy frequently seeks solace in a local woodland near her house in London, perhaps suggesting something of a nature-culture divide, but less of an urban-rural divide. 

The book contains a wonderful attempt to define ‘wild’ (223).  ‘What does wild mean to me?’ She asks.  Going feral? Living in tun with the rhythms of nature?  Following your desires?  Liberating yourself from fear and the expectations of others?  If so, this year I’m living wilder than I ever have.  And what does ‘nature’ mean?  Everything that’s not man-made?  The natural world, including humans?’ 

Laurence Rose, Framing Nature: Conservation and Culture (Hebden Bridge: Gritstone Publishing, 2020)

Laurence Rose is a conversationist who has spent most of his career working for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).  Framing Nature is his second book after The Long Spring (2018).  Most of the books consists of nine essays on individual British species: the white tailed eagle, the corncrake, the fox, the badger, the willow tit, the field cricket, the narrow-headed ant, the otter, and the nightingale.  Most of these species are endangered or have seen a significant reduction in their habitat and range over the past 30 or 40 years, although a couple are making a comeback (e.g. the otter) or have adapted to change (e.g. the fox).  Towards the end Rose turns to a most philosophical approach to conservation that takes him to India and back.  It is interesting to note how international travel in a book about conservation is starting to cause a cognitive dissonance, especially with the casual remark that ‘I went to India’. 

In many ways the book is exactly what you would expect.  It is well-written and well-informed, although perhaps not quite as polished as much contemporary nature writing.  Rose talks a lot about Richard Mabey’s The Common Ground from the early 1980s, which was an inspiration for much of his own conservation work.  The central argument of Framing Nature is that conservation is cultural.  ‘Unfortunately,’ Rose writes towards the end of the book, ‘culture change isn’t something that organisations can just switch on – still less prescribe.’  But he sees hope in the youth movements that are currently having a big impact on conservation thought.  In one of the ideas for change that Rose discussed at a conference in York in 2019, Rose is particularly scathing about National Parks:

Rethink our relationship with land.  Make all public land, Crown land, Royal Family property, National Nature Reserves and National Parks work as national assets and not (only) private assets.  National Parks in particular are among the most nature-depleted tracts in the UK, compared to how they should be, so we should start there, where options such as wildling must be embraced and fully favourable SSSI condition must be a minimum standard across the whole. (223)

This builds on an extended criticism of the SSSI system that comes ealier:

‘Lodge Hill and Knepp [discussed in the nightingale chapte] represent two crossing pathways along which place-based conservation is travelling.  Lodge Hill, supposedly protected by its status as an SSSI, reminds us that the UK’s protected area system is at the mercy of the development planning process and as such is subordinate to it.  It is a system that has failed some of the most important and precious places in the past, and which every year continues to see damage or neglect inflicted on others.  At base the struggle to defend the most important wildlife sites from development is a continual conveyor belt of costly and devisive cases, which can be comprehensively lost but never conclusively won.  It is a 70-year old tool that has rusted in the hands of conservationists who continue to wield it for want of a modern implement, with no choice but to participate in an unfit system.’ 

The trip to India is motivated by Satish Kumar’s idea of Reverential Ecology.  Kumar is ‘the Rajastan-born co-founder of the ecology-centred Schumacher College at Dartington Hall, Devon.’  He sees Reverential Ecology as one of three ecologies (alongside shallow ecology and deep ecology), which calls for mutually beneficial and unconditional coexistence.  It is interesting to note that what comes across as a largely secular book sees a spiritual solution, even if it is a spiritual solution that is located in a very different cultural context.  There is nothing wrong with looking overseas for solutions to our environmental problems, and that might be a major advantage of globalisation.  But it may also be worth looking for spiritual solutions a little closer to home. 

James Rebanks, English Pastoral: An Inheritance (Allen Lane, 2020)

‘There is an old saying that we should farm as if we are going to live for a thousand years.’ (199)

English Pastoral tells the story of three generations of Lakeland farmers: the author’s grandfather, his father and the author himself.  Titled ‘Nostalgia’, ‘Progress’, and ‘Utopia’, the book is divided into three sections that largely correspond with the three main stories.  Rebanks grew up on his parents’ rented farm, but got on best with his grandfather who owned an upland farm.  After leaving home and studying at university, Rebanks returns to farming and takes ownership of his grandfather’s farm after the death of his father.  Both the grandfather and father stories are poignant and tragic.  Towards the beginning of the book (p.83), for example, in discussing the friendship between his grandfather and his friend called George, Rebanks gives a beautiful description of the culture of farming communities in the late C.20^th: 

These peopled lived insular, often deeply private lives focused on their work.  Their voices were rarely heard, because they sought no audience.  Their identities were constructed from things that couldn’t be bought in shops.  They wore old clothes, and only went shopping occasionally for essentials.  They held ‘shop-bought’ things in great contempt.  They preferred cash to credit, and would mend anything that broke, piling up old things to use again someday, rather than throwing them away.  They had hobbies and interests that cost nothing, turning their necessary tasks like catching rats or foxes into sport.  Their friendships were built around their work, and the breeds of cattle and sheep they kept.  They rarely took holidays or bought new cars.  And it wasn’t all work – a lot of time was spent on farm-related activities that were communal and more relaxed, or in the simple enjoyment of wild things.  My grandfather called this way of life ‘living quietly’. 

The overall story of the first two sections one of rapid social and environmental decline. Following his return to the farm, Rebanks sees an opportunity to reverse at least some of this declensionist narrative.  His utopia, however, is realistic and he makes clear that living on a farm is not escapism from the world: ‘But I’ve come to see that the reality of being a farmer is anything but an escape from the world; it is often like being a slave to it. 

Despite including the Christian meaning of the word ‘pastoral’ in its initial definition from the OED (‘concerning or appropriate to the giving of spiritual guidance’), the book has relatively little to say about religion.  Growing up the annual harvest festival played an important role in the life of the rural community, but efforts to promote Sunday School attendance were ignored.   Rebank’s grandfather, we are told, didn’t like the local vicar.  On p.164 Rebanks writes: ‘My father wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but he believed in something similar.  He thought that things should have limits and constraints.  He believed in moderation and balance.  And he died hating what had happened to farming.  He had seen enough of it to know it had become a corruption of all he had loved and cared about.’  In the final section of the book, it is a synthesis of science (ecology) and traditional farming that Rebanks calls for, rather than any religious renewal of farming.  But there is a deep element of spiritual renewal, alongside the social and political, changes that Rebanks calls for. 

We’ve spent the last four days walking the Coleridge Way in west Somerset from Nether Stowey to Lynmouth.  In the evenings I read the first volume of Richard Holmes’s biography of Coleridge, Coleridge: Early Visions (1989).  I didn’t know much about Coleridge’s life or many of the details of the origins of English romantic poetry, but the combination of walking and reading has given me some interesting insights. 

Coleridge grew up in Ottery St Mary in Devon and attended boarding school at Christ’s Hospital School before studying at Cambridge.  He was a brilliant scholar, but endured a difficult personal life from early childhood.  At Cambridge he developed the idea of pantisocracy with Robert Southey and others.  This was to be a utopian community of equals.  But despite efforts to move to America and put this into practice, it never happened.  Instead, he cultivated a career as a metaphysical poet, reading voraciously (‘the last person to read everything’, I heard recently on a podcast).  After spending some time in Bristol Coleridge moved to Nether Stowey near the Quantock Hills to be close to his friend Thomas Poole.  While here he developed a strong friendship and professional partnership with William and Dorothy Wordsworth. 

In 1797-98 Coleridge and Wordsworth wandered around the Quantocks and Exmoor (now the Coleridge Way) and wrote poetry.  A co-authored volume was published in 1798 as Lyrical Ballads, which is often seen as the birth of English romantic poetry.  Walking the Coleridge Way allows some sense of the fusion of physical experience and ideas that came together in the ideas of Coleridge and Wordsworth.  A second edition was published in 1802 with a preface that is often seen as an early manifesto of romanticism. 

The years after Nether Stowey remained productive for Coleridge, but were not always particularly happy.  After moving to Germany with the Wordsworths they went their separate ways, and although they remained friends the relationship shifted.  Coleridge left his wife Sara in Somerset as he studied in Germany and his second child died while he was away.  The title of the second volume of Holmes’ biography Darker Reflections suggests that worse is to come. 

I’ve started reading Guy Shrubsole’s Who Owns England (2019) yesterday. It has some interesting and disturbing implications for thinking about Church Farms and Christian Agriculture. But it also highlights the important role that the Church might be able to play in bringing about more equitable access to England’s countryside. I’ve still got a lot to read, but my impression so far is that the Church is categorised as being part of ‘the Establishment,’ and therefore part of the problem. Acknowledging this situation is important, but it’s also important to ask what might be done to make the Church part of the solution here. In a debate that is deeply divided, the Church might be able to function as a space of reconciliation and to create real progress. This adds an interesting additional layer of challenge to any efforts to bring about a Christian agrarianism, but it’s good to be aware of this challenge. My reading so far points to the importance of the geographer Doreen Massey in this field, so it’s going to be important to look at some of her ideas.

I’ve been reading Alistair McGrath’s Christian Theology: An Introduction in preparation for starting at Sarum College this weekend and I spent some time over the weekend reading Celia Deane-Drummond’s A Primer in Ecotheology: Theology for a Fragile Earth (2017). In much the same way that I argue that all history is environmental history, a case could be made that all theology is environmental theology. Some theology, like some history, is explicitly environmental theology in that ‘environmental theology’ or ‘ecotheology’ is what it calls itself. But in dealing with the nature of God and the nature of human existence, all theology connects to the environment: the material reality of the world, how we understand that world, and how we act within it. There is a case to be made for expanding our understanding of the boundaries of environmental theology, much like Mark Fiege did for environmental history in Republic of Nature. I’m looking forward to exploring this further over the coming months as I get started with my course.

I wan’t super-impressed by A Primer in Ecotheology. It seemed quite rushed and lacked a clear structure. There was some interesting background material on the origins of ecotheology, but this wasn’t well developed or systematic. I’m still looking for a ‘state of the field’ essay that can serve as a thorough introduction.