LAURENCE OLIVIER AS ARCHIE RICE

1957, from John Osborne's play The Entertainer, matte silver gelatin print, framed, 30 x 27xm; 41.5 x 39cm (framed); together with a film advertisement of Laurence Olivier in the same role; and two further The Entertainer promotional items
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Osborne began writing The Entertainer in the autumn of 1956. It was his paean to music hall entertainment, '...a theatre for the working class, local and intimate, combative on behalf of its audiences, chiding them sometimes but never patronising them' (Whitebrook, p. 128). The play was inspired by Osborne's treasured experiences of attending music halls with his father in the 1930s, and the all too apparent demise of the genre and the destruction of the music hall buildings themselves after the War when going to the flicks became increasingly popular.

The Entertainer was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre on 10th April 1957. The lead character, Archie Rice, a failing music hall actor, was played by Laurence Olivier. Olivier was the most sought after actor of his generation, and to secure him in the lead role of a new play, only Osborne's second, and hard on the heels of the controversy surrounding Look Back in Anger, was a huge coup for the English Stage Company under the management of George Devine. According to Heilpern, Olivier had had misgivings about Look Back in Anger as it offended his sense of patriotism and theatre, and he only attended a performance because of the American playwright Arthur Miller's interest. But when Devine took Miller and Olivier backstage afterwards to meet Osborne, Olivier asked the fledgling playwright 'Do you suppose you could write something for me?' (Heilpern, p. 213). The Entertainer was the result.

Qty: 4