Reading Order
Look Back in Anger Reading Order
Look Back in Anger (1956) by John Osborne is the play that changed British theater — Jimmy Porter, his wife Alison, their attic flat in the English Midlands, and the arrival of Alison's friend Helena, who becomes Jimmy's lover while Alison is pregnant. The Royal Court Theatre's production of Look Back in Anger on May 8, 1956 is the most important date in post-war British theater: the 'Angry Young Men' phenomenon that followed established a new kind of British theatrical subject (working-class, educated, disaffected) and a new kind of British theatrical voice (direct, abrasive, politically engaged). Jimmy Porter — who runs a sweet stall, is married to a general's daughter, and spends the play conducting a sustained assault on everything he cannot stand about England — is the first anti-hero of post-war British theater, and his assault on Alison and Helena and on the English class system is the originating gesture of what became the 'kitchen sink' drama of the late 1950s and 1960s.
Where to start
Look Back in Anger (1956) — the complete text. Best Osborne reading order: Look Back in Anger → The Entertainer → Luther → Inadmissible Evidence → A Patriot for Me
Complete Look Back in Anger Book List
- 1Buy
Look Back in Anger
John Osborne·1956·The play that changed British theater — Jimmy Porter, Alison, Helena, and the attic flat. The Royal Court's production on May 8, 1956 is the most important date in post-war British theater; the term 'Angry Young Men' derives from the reaction to this play - 2Buy
The Entertainer
John Osborne·1957·The companion Osborne play — Archie Rice, the failing music hall comedian, and his family. The Entertainer is Look Back in Anger transposed from domestic anger to cultural elegy: where Jimmy Porter attacks the present, Archie Rice mourns the passing of the England that could have been. Laurence Olivier's original performance as Archie Rice is legendary - 3Buy
Saved
Edward Bond·1965·Bond's 1965 companion in the tradition of the British kitchen-sink play — the working-class South London world and the scene in which a baby in a pram is stoned to death by a gang of boys. Saved is the most controversial play of the 1960s British theater and the most extreme development of the theatrical tradition that Look Back in Anger initiated: where Osborne's Jimmy Porter is angry, Bond's characters are beyond anger into violence - 4Buy
A Taste of Honey
Shelagh Delaney·1958·Delaney's 1958 companion in the tradition of the British kitchen-sink drama — Jo, her mother Helen, Jo's pregnancy after a relationship with a Black sailor, and her friendship with Geoffrey, a gay man. A Taste of Honey and Look Back in Anger are companion plays of the 1956-1960 British theatrical revolution: where Osborne's protagonist is male, educated, and angry at women, Delaney's is female, working-class, and navigating a world organized to ignore her - 5Buy
The Birthday Party
Harold Pinter·1958·Pinter's 1958 companion — Stanley in his seaside boarding house, the arrival of Goldberg and McCann, and the birthday party. The Birthday Party is the most important alternative to Look Back in Anger in the British theater of 1956-1960: where Osborne's characters are verbally explicit about their anger and their grievances, Pinter's characters are organized around menace, silence, and the unsayable - 6Buy
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
Alan Sillitoe·1959·Sillitoe's 1959 companion in the tradition of the Angry Young Men — Colin Smith, the Borstal boy who runs, and his refusal to win the race for the governor. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Look Back in Anger are companion investigations of the same working-class disaffection: Osborne's Jimmy Porter has escaped his class through education and marriage; Sillitoe's Colin Smith refuses to escape on the authorities' terms - 7Buy
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Alan Sillitoe·1958·Sillitoe's companion in the tradition of the British working-class novel — Arthur Seaton, the Nottingham bicycle factory worker. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Look Back in Anger are the definitive companion texts of the Angry Young Men moment: the novel's Arthur Seaton and the play's Jimmy Porter are the same type (young, working-class, angry, disaffected, difficult with women) in different forms - 8Buy
Room at the Top
John Braine·1957·Braine's 1957 companion in the tradition of the Angry Young Men novel — Joe Lampton's determination to escape his class through ambition and marriage. Room at the Top and Look Back in Anger are companion investigations of the post-war British class system from the angry working-class perspective: Osborne's Jimmy Porter is too principled (or too angry) to make the compromises that success requires; Braine's Joe Lampton makes them
Look Back in Anger — Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Look Back in Anger important in British theater?
Look Back in Anger is important because it arrived at the Royal Court Theatre on May 8, 1956 and changed what British theater could be about and who British theater could be for. Before Osborne's play, the dominant mode of British theater was the well-made play of the middle and upper classes (Terence Rattigan, Noël Coward, the drawing-room comedies of the West End). The Royal Court's production of Look Back in Anger established a new kind of theatrical subject (working-class, educated, angry) and a new kind of theatrical venue (the small, subsidized theater committed to new writing rather than commercial success). The term 'Angry Young Men' was applied to a generation of British writers who followed Osborne (Kingsley Amis, John Braine, Alan Sillitoe, Shelagh Delaney) and who shared his sense that England in 1956 was a country that had failed to deliver on its post-war promises to the working class. The theatrical movement that followed — 'kitchen sink drama,' with its focus on working-class domestic life — is directly descended from Look Back in Anger.
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