Ranking among the most distinctive contemporary British dramas, Peter Barnes's mordantly comic satires blend neo-Jacobean language, modern gags, invented words, literary allusions, and such aspects of popular culture as songs and movie references. Opposed to naturalism, Barnes opts for bold theatricality. Lightly, swiftly, and within the same scene, he transforms theatrical styles: from archaic diction to contemporary slang to expressionism to formal rhetoric to lyricism to classical music to modern song to ritual to slapstick.

The son of Frederick and Martha Miller Barnes, he was born in London's East End, within the sound of the bells of Bow Church--certification, he points out with pride, that he is an authentic cockney. Before World War II, the family moved to the seaside resort Clacton-on-Sea, where Barnes's parents ran an amusement stall on the pier. At age seventeen, he left school for a job with the Greater London Council and soon...