Irving Wardle(1929-2023)

Graduated from Wadham College, Oxford.

Decade divisions are supposed to exist only for the convenience of historians, but there is nothing artificial in the contrast between the 1950s and the 1960s in the British theatre. Even at the time, you could feel the climate changing. An age of endeavour was giving way to an age of instant success. Art with an attitude subsided into random satire. Convictions dwindled into fashionable attitudes. Yesterday's rebels turned into today's beautiful people.