One of the world's most enduring and successful cultural diplomacy organizations, the British Council (BC) has played a prominent role in promoting and exporting British theatre, literature, and language across the globe since its founding in 1934. A key component of the BC's self-proclaimed remit of “forging links between Britain and other countries through cultural exchange,” the organization's Drama Division has over its lifetime worked to sponsor and facilitate the overseas touring of a significant number of British theatrical enterprises, exporting both large-scale national company productions with substantial casts and a repertoire of shows, as well as individual actors, directors, and academics embarking on speaking tours. From the stage, renowned actors and star names such as Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Vivien Leigh, Peggy Ashcroft, and John Gielgud were routinely chosen by the BC to appear in series of “theatrical manifestations,” serving in dual capacities both as actors in productions and ambassadors for a nation—the word “manifestation” being the BC's own preferred terminology used to refer to the export of a cultural event during the middle of the past century. Yet unlike comparable accounts of the relationship between the Arts Council and theatre, we possess no systematic study of the BC's involvement in this field, meaning that fundamental questions about the nature, range, and impact of the BC's cultural activity remain unanswered. Indeed, until comparatively recently, the history of the BC has failed to generate much scholarly interest at all, but the nature of its imbrication within British theatrical culture in particular remains severely occluded.

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英国文化协会和马拉/萨德争议


英国文化协会 （BC） 是世界上最持久、最成功的文化外交组织之一，自 1934 年成立以来，一直在全球推广和出口英国戏剧、文学和语言方面发挥着重要作用。作为 BC 自称“通过文化交流在英国和其他国家之间建立联系”职责的重要组成部分，该组织的戏剧部门在其一生中一直致力于赞助和促进大量英国戏剧企业的海外巡演，出口具有大量演员的大型全国性公司作品和剧目。 以及开始巡回演讲的个人演员、导演和学者。在舞台上，劳伦斯·奥利维尔、拉尔夫·理查森、费雯·丽、佩吉·阿什克罗夫特和约翰·吉尔古德等著名演员和明星经常被 BC 选为一系列“戏剧表现”，同时担任作品演员和国家大使的双重身份——“表现”一词是 BC 自己首选的术语，用于指代上世纪中叶文化事件的输出。然而，与对艺术委员会和剧院之间关系的类似描述不同，我们没有对 BC 省参与这一领域的系统研究，这意味着关于 BC 省文化活动的性质、范围和影响的基本问题仍未得到解答。事实上，直到最近，BC 的历史根本没有引起太多的学术兴趣，但它与英国戏剧文化的融合性质仍然严重模糊。