Health, Sickness and Literature for Children

The subjects of health, including sickness, and medicine are developing as new areas of research interest applied to the field of children’s literature really over the past five years. This chapter discusses the ways in which these areas have been, are being, and could be developed and identify reasons why this is so and the importance of such research. The chapter highlights the interdisciplinarity of this work and the ways in which these approaches enable new thinking.

Shakespeare and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre 1913-1929

It is well known that the Birmingham Repertory Theatre launched the careers of some of the greatest twentieth-century Shakespearian actors including Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson. What is not so well known is that the Rep legend was based on a radical commitment to the innovative staging of Shakespeare which dates back to the earliest years of the century. By the 1920s this had initiated a profound shift in Shakespeare performance values which continues to inform modern production. In telling the story of Rep Shakespeare and the directors, designers and actors who contributed to the company's world-wide reputation, this book sets the work of the first purpose-built British repertory theatre in the context of the major aesthetic and organisational changes which were to transform twentieth-century theatre as a whole.