LIFT and the GLC versus Thatcher: London’s Cultural Battleground in 1981

Abstract

In 1981 Rose Fenton and Lucy Neal established the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT). While the Festival is generally recognized as having been highly influential in the field of British theatre over the past twenty-five years, it has received little academic attention. In this article Phoebe Patey-Ferguson examines the founding of the event, arguing that the specific socio-political circumstances of its early years gave shape to the innovative form of a city-based international theatre festival. The bureaucratic conflict between Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government and Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council (GLC) is identified as a central factor in the creation of LIFT, with reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the bureaucratic field and Loïc Wacquant’s development of this model in relation to neoliberal market capitalism. The article is derived from Phoebe Patey-Ferguson’s recently completed PhD on LIFT in its social, cultural, and political context at the Department of Theatre and Performance, Goldsmiths, University of London.¹