Look Back in Anger

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This was the first play by the young actor John Osborne, and the waves it made when the Royal Court Theatre cast it into the placid sea of post-war drama have still not ceased to ripple. Look Back in Anger made Osborne’s reputation as an iconoclast, a writer prepared to depict uncomfortable truths as he saw them and unprepared to offer a panacea. Until Look back in Anger no-one quite like Jimmy Porter had ever been portrayed on the English stage, yet how well known he is to all of us: a man whose wit and capability for affection make him irresistible to both men and women, but whose restless dissatisfaction with himself makes him unable to settle to anything, makes him turn with violence on those who love him. He is still the most disturbing of Osborne’s illustrious anti-heroes.