At the beginning of the century, in Great Britain there was the renewal (rinnovamento)of the comedy. People wanted to find entertainment (intrattenimento) and run away from the anguish and fears of the period. The play Peter Pan (1904) by the Scottish playwright and novelist James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) represented the escape from reality through the story of a boy who refuses to grow up (crescere). The play was then retold in narrative form as Peter and Wendy (1911) adapted as a musical comedy and later made into a silent film (1924) and an animated cartoon (1952). Other comedies accepted the influence of the new means of communication (mezzi di comunicazione) like radio and cinema. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), British famous novelist, playwright (drammaturgo) and short-story writer, introduced his frequent trips (viaggi) as a member of the British Intelligence in his famous stories. An example is the popular Rain, contained in The Trembling of a Leaf (1923), later made into a play and into several movies. The same happened to the novels The Moon And The Sixpence (1919) about Paul Gauguin’s life, and Razor’s Edge (1944, Sul filo del rasoio), about a spiritual quest (ricerca). He described people and events with his sardonic and amoral view of human behaviour (comportamento). It is said that the modern spy story began with Maugham’s Ashenden; Or The British Agent (1928), that Alfred Hitchcock used in his film Secret Agent (1936).
At the beginning of the century, in Great Britain there was the renewal (rinnovamento)of the comedy. People wanted to find entertainment (intrattenimento) and run away from the anguish and fears of the period. The play Peter Pan (1904) by the Scottish playwright and novelist James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937) represented the escape from reality through the story of a boy who refuses to grow up (crescere). The play was then retold in narrative form as Peter and Wendy (1911) adapted as a musical comedy and later made into a silent film (1924) and an animated cartoon (1952). Other comedies accepted the influence of the new means of communication (mezzi di comunicazione) like radio and cinema. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), British famous novelist, playwright (drammaturgo) and short-story writer, introduced his frequent trips (viaggi) as a member of the British Intelligence in his famous stories. An example is the popular Rain, contained in The Trembling of a Leaf (1923), later made into a play and into several movies. The same happened to the novels The Moon And The Sixpence (1919) about Paul Gauguin’s life, and Razor’s Edge (1944, Sul filo del rasoio), about a spiritual quest (ricerca). He described people and events with his sardonic and amoral view of human behaviour (comportamento). It is said that the modern spy story began with Maugham’s Ashenden; Or The British Agent (1928), that Alfred Hitchcock used in his film Secret Agent (1936).