No World of Its Own: Look Back in Anger Twenty Years Later

Abstract

MOST CRITICS OF MODERN DRAMA affirm that John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, which opened twenty years ago on May 8, 1956, at the Royal Court, London, changed the direction of English drama. (Actually, it is more accurate to say that it changed the direction of drama written in English since its influence had been felt as much on this side of the Atlantic as on its own.) Allardyce Nicoll in English Drama: A Modern Viewpoint declares that with Look Back in Anger English drama was "reborn" (p. 126). It is a bold declaration, one that would be difficult to defend, but it does indicate the enthusiasm this play once generated.