Michael Billington has lived though an era of radical change in politics, society and the theatre. And the stage, he says, is the art form that best reflects the mood of the nation. To celebrate the publications of his recent history of post-war theatre, State of the Nation - British Theatre since 1945, he is joined in conversation by playwright, poet, journalist and broadcaster Vincent Woods, (The Arts Show, RTÉ).
Michael Billington has been Theatre Critic of The Guardian since 1971 and Country Life since 1986. He is the author of biographies of Harold Pinter (newly revised in 2007) and Peggy Ashcroft, of critical studies of Tom Stoppard and Alan Ayckbourn, of a celebration of Ken Dodd and a collection of reviews, One Night Stands and Stage and Screen Lives selected from the Dictionary of National Biography.
He frequently lectures and broadcasts on the arts, teaches drama for the University of Pennsylvania, and is a Visiting Professor at King's College, London, and an Honorary Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford.