1956

Francis Beckett

In 1956, everything changed. Britain and France occupied Suez, and the Soviet Union invaded Hungary. Nikita Khrushchev's 'secret speech' exposed the crimes of Stalin. Suddenly the left found itself homeless, as the Communist Party became uninhabitable. The Royal Court Theatre unveiled John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, exploding the upper-middle-class complacency in which British theatre had cloaked itself.Tommy Steele and Lonnie Donegan leapt to fame, rock 'n' roll music replacing the gentle pop songs Mum and Dad also liked. Jim Laker made history by taking nineteen Australian wickets at Old Trafford, and Britain deported Archbishop Makarios from Cyprus and suppressed the Mau Mau in Kenya. It was the first full year of independent television, and the year the Treaty of Rome was negotiated. All the comfortable post-war assumptions were shattered.In the immediate post-war years, many...