John Osborne's Look Back in Anger

Aleks Sierz

Mar 2008 · A&C Black

About this ebook

Look Back in Anger is one of the few works of drama that are indisputably central to British culture in general, and its name is one of the most well-known in postwar cultural history. Its premiere in 1956 sparked off the first "new wave" of kitchen-sink drama and the cultural phenomenon of the angry young man. The play's anti-hero, Jimmy Porter, became the spokesman of a generation. Osborne's play is a key milestone in "new writing" for British theatre, and the Royal Court-which produced the play-has since become one of the most important new writing theatres in the UK.

Ratings and reviews

very good drama

About the author

Aleks Sierz is the theatre critic of Tribune and a freelance theatre reviewer. He is a lecturer in modern British theatre whose seminal study, In-Yer-Face Theatre, defined a new generation of writers and their work. In 2006 Methuen Drama published his guide, The Theatre of Martin Crimp, which was followed up by 2012's Modern British Playwriting: the 1990s. Sierz's journalism has featured in the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Independent. He is a widely read, highly regarded critic of modern British theatre. Aleks Sierz FRSA is Visiting Professor at Rose Bruford College, London, UK, and author of In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (Faber, 2001), John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (Continuum, 2008), Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (Methuen Drama, 2011) and Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s (Methuen Drama 2012). He also works as a journalist, broadcaster, lecturer and theatre critic.