Partners of the Imagination

Partners of the Imagination is the first in-depth study of the work of John Arden and Margaretta DArcy, partners in writing and cultural and political campaigns. Beginning in the 1950s, Arden and DArcy created a series of hugely admired plays performed at Britains major theatres. Political activists, they worked tirelessly in the peace movement and the Northern Ireland Troubles, during which DArcy was gaoled. She is also a veteran of the Greenham Common Womens Peace camp. Their later work included Booker-listed novels, prize-winning stories, essays and radio plays, and DArcy founded and ran a Womans Pirate Radio station. Raymond Williams described Arden as the most genuinely innovative of the playwrights of his generation, and Chambers and Prior claimed that The Non-Stop Connolly Show, DArcy and Ardens six-play epic, has fair claim to being one of the finest pieces of post-war drama in the English language. This study explores the connections between art and life, and between the responsibilities of the writer and the citizen. Importantly, it also evaluates the range of literary works (plays, poetry, novels, essays, polemics) created by these writers, both as literature and drama, and as controversialist activity in its own right. This work is a landmark examination of two hugely respected radical writers.