Look Back
Look Back in Anger (1956) is a
realist play written by
John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of
working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet impassive
upper-middle-class wife Alison. The supporting characters include Cliff Lewis, an amiable
Welsh lodger who attempts to keep the peace, and Helena Charles, Alison's snobbish friend.
Osborne drew inspiration from his personal life and failing marriage with Pamela Lane while writing
Look Back in Anger, which was his first successful outing as a playwright. The play spawned the term "
angry young men" to describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the harshness of
realism in the theatre in contrast to the more
escapist theatre that characterized the previous generation.
The play was received favorably in the theatre community of London, becoming an enormous commercial success, transferring to the West End and Broadway, and even touring to Moscow. It is credited to have turned Osborne from a struggling playwright into a wealthy and famous personality, and also won him the
Evening Standard Drama Award as the most promising playwright of 1956. The play was adapted into a
motion picture of the same name by
Tony Richardson, starring
Richard Burton and
Mary Ure, which was released in 1959. Wiki