This ground-breaking study analyses Beckett's television plays in relation to the history and theory of television. It argues that they are in dialogue with innovative television traditions connected to Modernism in television, film, radio, theatre, literature and the visual arts. Using original research from BBC archives and manuscript sources, the book provides new perspectives on the relationships between Beckett's television dramas and the wider television culture of Britain and Europe. It also compares and contrasts the plays for television with Beckett's Film and broadcasts of his...

Beckett's reception was characterised in its early stages by a sustained attention to nothing as a philosophical concept. Theodor Adorno, however, was quick to argue that Beckett's plays resisted - unlike Sartre's - having their nothing transformed into something. This Beckettian nothing, moreover, is often invested with the aura of the genius, either for eulogical or dismissive purposes. This volume invites its readership to understand the complex ways in which the Beckett canon both suggests and resists turning nothing into something by looking at specific, sometimes almost invisible ways...

British Television Drama provides resources for critical thinking about key aspects of television drama in Britain since 1960, including institutional, textual, cultural, economic and audience-centred modes of study. It presents and contests significant strands of critical work in the field, since the essays by TV professionals reveal their strongly-held views about TV (which often conflict productively with the views of fellow contributors) and the academics offer reasoned and more developed arguments that advance understanding. The new edition includes a revised chapter by acclaimed TV...