This program, hosted by renowned theater director Sir Richard Eyre, describes the battle for an authentic Irish theater—a theater of the working class, with realistic language and gritty social and political content. The influences of Oscar Wilde, William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, and Sean O’Casey are analyzed in detail. Harold Brighouse and D. H. Lawrence are also profiled, as are the Manchester school and the regional repertory movement. Clips from The Importance of Being Earnest, The Playboy of the Western World, The Plow and the Stars, and other plays are included. Original BBC broadcast title: Ireland. (50 minutes)