Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker

Sophie Bush is a writer-researcher specialising in contemporary theatre history and the processes of playmaking. Her doctorate, on the work of Timberlake Wertenbaker, was awarded by the University of Sheffield in 2011. She is a Lecturer in Performance at Sheffield Hallam University, and has previously taught at the Universities of Sheffield, Huddersfield and Manchester Metropolitan. She maintains an involvement with practical theatre-making, as director and devisor.

• AcknowledgementsList of illustrationsIntroduction: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s floating identitiesChapter One: ‘Good enough to go on’: the beginnings of a playwright Chapter Two: ‘They never went on quests’: the gender of identification Chapter Three: ‘To speak in order to be’: on language and identity Chapter Four: Three professional perspectives on Our Country's GoodCreating Our Country’s Good: collaborative writing practice and political ideals at the Royal Court in the 1980s by Sarah SigalOur Country's Good in Melbourne by Roger HodgmanOur Country's Good in the classroom by Debby TurnerChapter Five: ‘The longing to belong’: on cultural genealogies Chapter Six: ‘Landscapes with figures in them’: on pity and tendernessConclusions ResourcesChronologyBibliography Notes on ContributorsNotes and References Index

Accessible and informative, The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker engages in a detailed survey of Wertenbaker's career as a playwright. Bush's approach is rooted in a close, textual analysis of play texts and production contexts, whilst her material is structured by means of a chronological charting of the dramatist's work through to the contemporary moment . . . Three-pronged attention [to Our Country's Good], complemented by Bush's own discussion of this major, widely studied and performed work, augers a wide market for the book from secondary to tertiary levels . . . Overall Bush makes a robust case as to why 'the theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker' deserves our enduring critical interest