Romantic Comedy [Paperback]

'The course of true love never did run smooth'  so says Lysander inA Midsummer Night's Dream, and for more than 2000 years the problems faced by young men and women fighting to find and keep an appropriate sexual partner have been a theatrical staple. This book explores the shapes that Romantic Comedy has assumed from Greek New Comedy via Shakespeare to the present. Changing social values have helped to redefine the genre's traditional hetero-normativity, while the recent trend towards more fluid casting has opened up many romantic comedies to radical reinterpretations.

Organized chronologically to allow readers to trace the development of the form against changing societal norms, the book features a range of case studies of key works from the British tradition, includingA Midsummer Night's Dream,Twelfth Night, Susanna Centlivre'sA Bold Stroke for a Wife,Oliver Goldsmith'sShe Stoops to Conquer,Stanley Houghton'sHindle Wakes, No?l Coward'sPrivate Lives, Shelagh Delaney'sA Taste of Honey, Ayub Khan-Din'sEast is Eastand David Eldridge'sBeginning.

Worth reading particularly for the intelligent way in which it defines its subject then follows it through history from ancient times to the present day. British Theatre Guide

Griffiths' book offers a succinct and lively introduction to English Romantic Comedy. Analysing and contextualizing a range of key texts and their performance history from the Renaissance to the 21st century, this accessible book pays special attention to how dramatists have explored, adapted and challenged the conventions of Romantic Comedy, as lÃ"