Other theatres : the development of alternative and experimental theatre in Britain /

The author, who claims to have written ``the first overall history of British alternative theatre,'' has provided a useful context for books that offer more firsthand information than his about this significant movement. Raphael Samuel's Theatres of the Left 1880-1935 (CH, Mar '86), Catherine Itzin's Stages in the Revolution and Dreams and Deconstructions, ed. by Sandy Craig (both CH, Nov '81), Engineers of the Imagination, ed. by Tony Coult and Baz Kershaw (CH, Jul-Aug '84), and Howard Goorney's Theatre Workshop Story (CH, Oct '82) present an immediacy and a sense of the dynamic of alternate theater lacking in Davies's work, although his long view, extending from popular melodrama of the 19th century to the current influence of alternate theater over Britain's major subsidized theaters, is helpful. Working from secondary sources. Davies commits errors-e.g., Joan Littlewood did not ``leave the theatre in 1968, never, to date, to return.'' The notes, references, and bibliographies will aid students and scholars. Closer editorial supervision might have reduced the typographical errors. Academic libraries at all levels.-R. Sugarman, Southern Vermont College