Winsome Pinnock

Winsome Pinnock is the first book length study of one of Britain’s most important play-wrights and her four-decade long career chronicling the lives of Black people, and Black women in particular, in Britain.

It offers a detailed and sustained analysis of Pinnock’s plays, attending to their formal, aesthetic and thematic qualities as well as in-depth examination of the socio-cultural and political contexts that informed the creation and reception of them from the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, the targeted attacks on Black migrants in Notting Hill in the 1950s through to Black Lives Matter movement. Combining archival research and close textual analysis, Dorney explores the range of Pinnock’s works from little-known radio plays, monodramas and micro-dramas through to well-known plays such as Leave Taking, Mules and the award-winning Rockets and Blue Lights. It considers the ways in which Pinnock’s work addresses issues of belonging, family and resistance to exploitation and abuse and how Pinnock’s craft as a playwright has developed over time and been transmitted through her long career as a teacher of creative writing.

Part of the Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatist series, this volume provides essential insights for scholars, students, and practitioners interested in modern play-writing, race and representation, and the politics of performance.

Kate Dorney is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre & Performance at the University of Manchester, UK. Her research focuses on theatre in Britain in the 20th and 21st centuries, and in particular on playwriting, feminist theatre history, arts funding and archival and curatorial studies. Her books include The Changing Language of Modern English Drama (2009), Played in Britain: Modern British Theatre in 100 Plays (2012, with Frances Gray) and Stage Women (2019, with Maggie B Gale).