Look Back in Anger, John Osborne | Directed by Naomi Coleman
3 and 4 October, doors open at 6.15pm, performance starts at 7pm. All ticket sales go to the cast and director.
We’re excited to host Naomi Coleman’s retelling of Look Back in Anger, a play by John Osborne acted out in the ‘living room’ setting of Gather downstairs. This won’t be theatre per se, but an immersive experience where the boundaries between reality and fiction, actor and audience are rendered impossible to decipher.
Whilst John Osborne may have been a controversial figure, his play Look Back in Anger brought life to ‘kitchen sink realism’, initiating a movement of social realism that paved the way for unprecedented changes in British theatre.
Currently showing at the Almeida, London, we have been very lucky to have the blessing of the owner to the rights of the play to show it here in Ludlow, at Gather. Set in our downstairs space, this is an opportunity to experience the play as it was intended – in an intimate and domestic setting, where the exploration of themes of grief, class, anger and alienation will be palpable and immediate. As a maker space, when Naomi approached Gather about staging the play here, we couldn’t think of a better way to support practicing actors and directors whilst bringing audiences closer to theatre arts than this mode, where the audience is enveloped by the set and drama and the props are the spaces we work within.
Synopsis: The play follows a young husband and wife, Alison and Jimmy Porter, as they attempt to navigate class conflict and deal with a deteriorating marriage in 1950s England. Jimmy is frustrated by his post-war life running a local stall – embittered by the disapproval of his wife Alison’s wealthier family and a world that has shut him out, he frequently spirals into fits of rage. As their friends try to keep them level, Alison and Jimmy descend into emotional wreckage.
John Osborne
John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a journalist before starting out in theatre as a stage manager and actor. He lived in poverty for several years before his third produced play, Look Back in Anger (1956), brought him national fame.
Based on Osborne's volatile relationship with his first wife, Pamela Lane, it is considered the first work of kitchen sink realism, initiating a movement which made use of social realism and domestic settings to address disillusion with British society in the waning years of the Empire. The phrase “angry young man”, coined by George Fearon to describe Osborne when promoting the play, came to embody the predominantly working class and left-wing writers within this movement. Osborne was considered its leading figure due to his often-controversial left-wing politics, though critics nevertheless noted a conservative strain even in his early writing.
Osborne lived his later years in Clun, Shropshire.