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British Drama

Notes 10. The problem play is also called as thesis play, discussion play, and the comedy of
ideas.

2.2 Kitchen Sink Drama

Kitchen sink drama also known as kitchen sink realism is a term coined to describe a British cultural
movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television
plays, whose ‘heroes’ usually could be described as angry young men. It used a style of social
realism, which often depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in rented
accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and
political controversies.
The films, plays and novels employing this style are set frequently in poorer industrial areas in the
North of England, and use the rough-hewn speaking accents and slang heard in those regions. The
film It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) is a precursor of the genre, and the John Osborne play Look
Back in Anger (1956) is thought of as the first of the idiom.

Example: The gritty love-triangle plot of Look Back in Anger is centred on a cramped, one-
room flat in the English Midlands. The conventions of the genre have continued into the 2000s,
finding expression in such television shows as Coronation Street and Eastenders.

Antecedents and influences
The cultural movement was rooted in the ideals of social realism, an artistic movement, expressed
in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts working class activities. Many artists who subscribed
to social realism were painters with socialist political views. While the movement has some
commonalities with Socialist Realism, the “official art” advocated by the governments of the Soviet
Union and other Eastern Bloc countries, the two had several differences.
Unlike Socialist realism, social realism is not an official art produced by, or under the supervision of
the government. The leading characters are often ‘anti-heroes’ rather than part of a class to be admired,
as in Socialist realism. Typically, they are dissatisfied with their lives and the world—rather than
being idealised workers who are part of a Socialist utopia (supposedly) in the process of creation.
As such, social realism allows more space for the subjectivity of the author to be displayed.
Partly, social realism developed as a reaction against Romanticism, which promoted lofty concepts
such as the “ineffable” beauty and truth of art and music, and even turned them into spiritual
ideals. As such, social realism focused on the “ugly realities of contemporary life and sympathized
with working-class people, particularly the poor.”
The kitchen-sink drama is placed in an ordinary domestic setting and typically tells a relatively
mundane family story. Family tensions often come to the fore with realistic conflict between husband
and wife, parent and child, between siblings and with the wider community. The family may also
pull together in unity against outer forces that range from the rent-collector to rival families. Examples
of kitchen sink drama are Look Back in Anger, A Taste of Honey, and The Glass Menagerie.

2.2.1 Definition of the Term Kitchen Sink Drama

Genre of British drama which depicts the real and often sordid quality of family life. The plays are
socially and politically motivated, seeking to focus attention on the destruction of moral values
caused by consumerism and the break down of community. Writers include Arnold Wesker and
John Osborne. Kitchen-sink drama is related to the kitchen-sink movement in art, a loose-knit group
of British painters, active in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

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