LOOK BACK IN ANGER, JOHN OSBORNE

1995, poster, Royal National Theatre, cast included Michael Sheen, 75 x 49.5cm; 81 x 55cm (framed); together with a programme and flyer for the play; a small framed cartoon with the caption 'I'm giving John Osborne's book to my mother for Christmas'; and a copy of John Osborne's autobiography, Looking Back: Never Explain, Never Apologise, the 1999 single volume paperback edition of Osborne's two volumes of memoirs
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The cartoon reference's Osborne's less than flattering portrayal of his mother Nellie Beatrice (née Grove) in the first volume of his autobiography A Better Class of Person, published in 1981 which recounts his life and upbringing until 1956, the year Look Back in Anger was premiered. The book was received to great acclaim, but as John Heilpern noted Osborne's depiction of his mother 'turned her into a national character - "The Mother of John Osborne" - a cockney grotesque out of Dickens, an exaggerated pantomime figure... a Wicked Witch or Widow Twanky with her heavy face powder...' Heilburn recounts how after Nellie Beatrice died in 1983 aged eighty-seven, Osborne began an article intended for the Sunday Times with the words, 'A year in which my mother died can't be all bad.' (Heilburn pp. 22 & 23).

'Look Back in Anger' (1956) is probably John Osborne's most famous play and was purportedly written in seventeen days whilst he was acting in repertory theatre in Morecambe. It centres on the life and ifficulties of an educated, intelligent working class boy (Jimmy Porter) and his upper middle-class wife (Alison) and was the fore-runner of a new move toward realism in theatre. It was the seminal 'kitchen sink drama' and inspired the term 'angry young man'. The play brought John Osborne critical acclaim and commercial success, the original cast including Alan Bates and John Osborne's second wife, Mary Ure. Mary Ure also appeared in the film version (released in 1959) alongside Richard Burton abd Claire Bloom.