Theatre history still tends to privilege narratives of elaborate productions and artistic achievements. Combined with the too rarely challenged paradigm of ‘national theatre’, the so-called ‘provincial theatres’ remain largely invisible in many accounts. Heinrich's study responds to this problem by venturing into Yorkshire and Westphalia in the period between 1918 and 1945. That particular comparative perspective, for a time when Germany and Britain only held somewhat scant cultural relations, eventually embarking on a war with each other, initially surprises. Heinrich shows, however, that the depression after the Wall Street Crash in 1929 affected both countries deeply, and the use of theatre as an instrument of mental mobilization took a similar course – notwithstanding utterly different initial positions. Whereas theatre in England had always been a place of commercial entertainment, theatre in Germany was heavily subsidized. With the end of the German Empire after the First World War, the newly founded democratic municipalities took over the former court theatres and started to provide a broad spectrum of repertory theatre. While these institutions were conceived as ‘moral institutions’ in the vein of Schiller, Heinrich's analysis reveals astonishing similarities, with stages in both countries offering entertainment and amusement.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the English attitude towards theatre then changed radically. Within a short period of time, the government realized the political potential of the performing arts and offered financial support, preparing the ground for the (post-war) Arts Council. In Germany, the Nazis immediately took control of the theatres and attempted to implement a repertoire fitting their ideology. When these attempts showed no success – the audience simply did not respond to the new völkisch drama – theatres returned to their routine offering of classics, light comedies and a few contemporary plays. The study emphasizes the different political approaches behind the similar repertory: the Nazis tried to directly control the theatres by creating bureaucratic structures to exert influence on programming and even casting processes; the British government created a system of subsidies and incentives to gain the artists’ support. Heinrich stops at the end of the war, just to leave the reader curious as to what could be learned from such a continuing comparative perspective on the following Cold War period and its construction of ‘Western culture’. His study is meticulously researched, complex in its analyses and built on impressive archive work. Even if his argumentation appears at times too detailed and too narrow, his conclusions as well as the principal approach are exemplary in developing new historiographic perspectives, beyond ‘great’ productions and national narratives.