Second wave
"School" of playwrights working in the 1960s and 1970s, influenced by sociopolitical changes.
Stage Censorship and Students' Revolt
Until 1968 the representation of violent, blasphemous and sexual improper scenes was censored by the Lord Chamberlain. After this law was abolished young playwrights had more freedom for their original intentions and could show the previous taboos. Eward Bond, for example, created a non-naturalistic and political drama. His "surreal fantasy, Brechtian parables, stripped-down realism, Shakespearean revisionism or Restoration parody, the historical epic and even opera librettos" (Innes, p. 157) were not only new themes in these days but also showed his experimantal and influencing style. In Saved (1965), one of his major plays, there was a "unusual degree of intellectual consistency" (Innes, p. 157).
Fringe Theatre
The situation of the workers, the minorities and the homosexuals were characteristic for the fringe theatre. This form of theatre emerged around 1968 and functions as an alternative to the traditional theater because the plays were performed on small stages in the suburbs, basements and factory buildings. This form also influenced the legitimate stage because the fringe theatre created many new talented playwrights, that brought the nearness to the audience and the openness for experimental elements and themes, from the intimate and personal stage on the big stage.
Before the rising of the fringe theatre, there were almost exclusively male playwrights dominating the English drama scene. After the establishment of this new form, women in the theatre reached more prestige and dramatists like e.g. Caryl Churchill could experiment with gender roles and other "difficult" subjects. In Cloud Nine (1979) for example she showed postmodern permutation of gender roles and debunked the connection between the British colonial mentality and the sexual oppression.
Electronic Media
The last factor that could be categorized into the Second Wave was the close correlation of the English drama and the electronic media. This form of media was not only a way to reflect the plays critically but also to use it as element within the play e.g. to show film sequence on stage.
References
Innes, Christopher. Modern British Drama 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Englische Literaturgeschichte. ed. Hans Ulrich Seeber. 4th ed. Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2004. p. 392-394.