Book excerpt: Contemporary British Drama, 1970-90 focuses exclusively on the exciting and provocative plays produced in England in the last two decades - a period that has received relatively little critical attention. The primary aim of the collection is to celebrate the truly remarkable range of British drama since 1970, by examining the work of fourteen important and representative playwrights. This emphasis on range applies not only to the dramatists chosen for inclusion but to the critics as well - specifically to the diversity of critical methodology demonstrated in their essays, from thematic study to spectator response theory to semiotics to structuralism to performance theory.