British Social Realism in the Arts Since 1940

Social realism has been a vital element of British culture over the past seventy years. Yet it has not gained anywhere near the critical attention its impact warrants. It can be a highly responsive genre, one that confronts its contemporaneous social, economic and political contexts with visceral immediacy, while at the same time retaining a focus on the individual, the domestic and the private. This fascinating analysis of the intertwined histories and legacies of British social realism across disciplines reveals how important the changing genre has been for creative works since the Second World War, and how it resonates within contemporary contexts. With original contributions from leading scholars this collection provides chapters on film, theatre, fiction, visual art, poetry and television, that show how social realism speaks to our own times as well as of the past, and that a thoughtful and thorough reappraisal of the genre has been long overdue.