The “Diasporic Theatre” from nostalgia to contemporary socio-politics: reimagining identity in some contemporary Black and Asian British playwrights

Abstract

British theatre has undergone dramatic changes over the last few decades, which mirror the enormous changes in British society. In particular, since the 1980s there has been an increasing number of Black and Asian playwrights working in and writing about Britain. This article will focus on the diasporic theatre of such writers as Tanika Gupta, Roy Williams and Kwame Kwei-Armah, a kind of theatre which attempts to redefine British identity through a “hybridisation” of the theatrical discourse.