This collection of essays offers the first comprehensive treatment of British and American films adapted from modern British plays, providing insights into the mutually profitable relationship between the newest performance medium and the most ancient. With each chapter written by an expert in the field, Modern British Drama on Screen focuses on key playwrights of the period. including George Bernard Shaw, Somerset Maugham, Terence Rattigan, Noël Coward, and John Osborne and on the most significant British drama of the past century from Pygmalion to The Madness of George III. Most chapters are devoted to single plays and the transformations they underwent in the move from stage to screen. Ideally suited for classroom use, this book offers a semester's worth of introductory material for the study of theater and film in modern Britain, widely acknowledged as a world center of dramatic productions for both stage and screen. -- Book Jacket.