Recommendations
Books Like The Entertainer
Best books to read after The Entertainer by John Osborne
Readers who love The Entertainer by John Osborne are drawn to its combination of the failing music-hall form as theatrical structure, the devastating portrait of Archie Rice as a man who is alive only on stage, and the investigation of what Suez meant for Britain — they want plays and novels that deal with the relationship between performance and despair, the collapse of imperial confidence, and the tradition of the great British play about failure.
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Look Back in Anger
by John Osborne
The companion — Jimmy Porter in the Midlands flat. The companion play that established Osborne's reputation; The Entertainer is the companion investigation of the same Britain from a different class perspective: Jimmy is young and educated; Archie is middle-aged and from a world that is disappearing
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Inadmissible Evidence
by John Osborne
The companion Osborne play about Bill Maitland — a solicitor in middle age who is disintegrating. The companion investigation of what Archie Rice becomes when the performance fails completely; Bill Maitland is the domestic version of Archie Rice's crisis
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Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller
Miller's companion about Willy Loman — a travelling salesman whose life has been a performance. The companion investigation of the performer when the audience stops believing: Willy and Archie are companion figures, both men whose professional identity has been their only identity
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The Birthday Party
by Harold Pinter
The companion investigation of the same British seaside world — Stanley at his boarding house. Both The Entertainer and The Birthday Party are set in a similar British world and organized around the same question: what happens to the man who has no future in a Britain that no longer has a use for him?
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Waiting for Godot
by Samuel Beckett
The companion in the tradition of the performance of nothing — Didi and Gogo's vaudeville routines. Archie Rice's comedy routines and Didi and Gogo's vaudeville turns are companion investigations of the relationship between performance and despair
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The Entertainer
by John Osborne
The companion as text — but worth noting: Osborne's stage directions and the play's published form are part of the work, and reading the play text alongside watching or remembering the performance gives a different understanding of how Osborne intended the music-hall numbers to function. This is its own entry to flag that the play text rewards re-reading after seeing a production
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The White Devil
by John Webster
Webster's companion investigation of a character (Vittoria Corombona) who is alive and magnificent on the stage of her trial while the world condemns her. The companion as the theatrical prototype: the figure who performs brilliantly in front of an audience that wishes to destroy them
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Laughter in the Dark
by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov's companion novel about a man who is deluded about the nature of the performance he is in. The companion investigation of the relationship between performance, self-deception, and reality: Albinus believes himself to be the audience; he is actually the performer
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