Nation, nationhood and theatre [introduction to special issue]

There is, for me at least, a delightful irony in the fact that I should be writing the introduction to this collection of essays based on the proceedings of the 26th annual Contemporary Drama in English conference, on “Nation, Nationalism and Theatre,” held at the University of Reading (UK) in June/July 2017. For John Bull is, or more realistically was, regarded as the popular iconic figure epitomising the robust and patriotic cheerfulness of the English people.1 It is an identification that goes back to 1712, when he first made an appearance in John Arbuthnot’s The History of John Bull, an allegorical satire on the fag-end of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), where his protagonist struggles with Louis Baboon (Louis XIV of France) concerning the estate of the late Lord Strutt (Charles II, who had died without an heir, as the last Habsburg monarch of Spain)