Focusing on ‘political theatre’ made in British contexts in the 1970s, Maria DiCenzo has observed that some models of politically motivated theatre have traditionally received more academic attention than others. She also notes that certain models of practice have tended to be understood and represented in the canon as more efficacious and sophisticated, than certain others (DiCenzo, 1996). In view of DiCenzo’s perspectives, this paper questions how political theatre has arguably been ‘stratified’, or hierarchized according to certain contexts and criteria. This paper attempts to trouble the stability of such an ordering. After initially acknowledging the layered and complex status of the term ‘political theatre’, by using my recently completed practice-based doctoral research as a case study, it questions the cost of rejecting or marginalising past forms of political theatre practice. Rather, it argues that excavating ‘outmoded’ forms of political theatre can usefully inform effective politically motivated live performance today.