The theatre has then found itself (or placed itself) at various times and for various reasons at quite different points on the continuum. It has been used to reach and teach those whom the regular education providers have found difficult to access –for example, the plays used to convey clear messages about drug abuse and HIVlAIDS, or to aid students' understanding of Shakespeare prior to GCSE examinations; and it has been used as a medium of active and critical pedagogy - as, for example, in some of the innovative work about racism in the 1970s and 1980s, and in Boal-inspired forum theatre programmes dealing with aspects of health and citizenship education (see Chapters 7 and 8).