THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1959: "
Britain's Original Angry Young Man
by Simon Kavanaugh
London.
JOHN James Osborne has known fame for just
three years. In that time, by pen and tongue, he has attacked the Monarchy, the Church, the Tories, the Upper Classes, the H-Bomb, the Lord Chamberlain, homosexuality and women.
This month, Britain's original Angry Young Man (he is 29) got a nasty shock.
Someone attacked HIM!
ILL
To say that leonoclast Osborne 15 shattered by the disastrous difficult
13 moments like this, it
to equate John Os-
John James Osborne
Osborne's Arst job WES OB office-boy to a publishing firm. Then a friend Upped him about a post
Press notices of his first incurre and da garishness, his exasperated headmaster, swiftly and his professional retaliated, and was out loading sion to the musical comedy sideburns sphere-two hours of bitterness- anger with what one critic calls for work.
of contemporary to-music called The World of "the saviour Paul Slckey-would be doing British drama." The term is, of him an injustice. Raising his cirse, an exaggeration. But banner and trumpeting defiantly, it serves to show that, on singe he has acfed another victim to part his Linck-list: Britain's national newspapers.
"It was what I expected," he
"This was announced,
at lens, Osborne ne- serves to be taken seriously.
Defining his drama is tusk that even Osborne sinds difficult is Ideas offer nothing original pre s nain roles have a notice meditated. There's no question able sumenessJimmy Porter of complaining. But
one ir по
"Look Back In Anger,"
Exsler- Klee in "The daily newspaper critic has the chle intellectual equipment to ages tainer," and George Dion in my work or that of any other "Epitaph for Cleorge Dilion" are all he adrafts, merely an ex- Intelligent pinywright."
ledon of himself.
see He "T want people to
ha Rays, through my mirror," "to feel my linage....Only It I make people angry will they care-and maybe start think log."
All this, of course, is good Os. borne. It is the stuff that "Look Back In Anker" (1950) was made of, und "The Enter- tainer" (1957). It is the stuf 1.at has rocketed him in months from "No income. no tax and seruity cardigans
€3,000 a week and red shirts, black tes mut green suede shoes,
JACOBY
on
BRIDGE
30
to
revent total point team
In
five spater cang dvelarer at
toobled at euch able.
One South was lucky enough 1 play against a low heart epering red was able to hold At the his loss to one trick. other table West drelded that a
trump opening was in order and
Spades
opened the four of
with a touring slago
company.
Nothing remantle-jut kers- but the 20 children in the east in order and at their home- work. However, he graduated after a year to assistant stuge manager and. after that, octer. In the role of elor- Пnager, he drifted to several stage companies and appeared at the Royal Court Theatre.
to
Osborne wrote his first play when he was living in Hudders held. It was called "Personal Enemy," and was produced at the Opera House, Harrogate.
I
Patricia Lewis
IN THE ENGLISH RIVIERA
Why do people go abroad
St Mawes, Cornwall.
CAME to this Riviera (Cornish)
to see how nearly it ap proximated the other Riviera (French). I found clear skies. Blue seas. Fishing villages as pretty as St Tropez or Villefranche. A country- Bide cushioned with blossom. And a welcome warm as a local pasty.
There's the climate (they've had a belier winter here than In the South of France). There's the food (T've had excellent cooking).
#f
when
there's
a place like this?
But there are also the curious of a two hotels and-moving that treat in with a speed that dazzled the old-fashioned inwa every holidaymaker ps
batives he soon had control of delinquent. potential
For the second, is
well as 18-odd example: meals are al A set
houses which he used as on- lime (due to the Catering and nexes. Wages Act). And, of course, drinks are at set times (due to the censing lawd),
St Mawes
originally described to me as another S Tropez. "Go there." advised
Wag
With a touch of wry humour the inhabitants now refer to
their village as "St Moseley."
But Osborne's real Importance But it made no lasting impres- the Earl of Kimberley Sailing at
could be a paradise,"
Refusing to be prejudiced its finest Then he wrote "Look Back in
that he has restored Iterate slon, donlugue to
rapidly be- coming monosyllable,
ond that what he has to say reflects Anger," much of the frustration of his generation. After seeing "Look Back in Anger," a New York critic called it "the most vivid play of the decade."
★
is a tall
Drama's "saviour" and loosely bugular figure, often te be found at the dim bars of Chelsen's pubiand; more uiten, perhaps, Jack-knifed in an arm- chair in nia contemporary Chel sea home, or sprawling thought
at American Buick or Jaguar XX, Beneath short brown hair and slanted, sleepy eyes, the mouth twists a trife cynically, show- ing large teeth and a lot of gum. But it smiles a lot. And tho voice is soft.
Osborne la n Socialist, but he does not let its more inhibiting principles impede him. “Of course I enjoy money," he says. With South won in his own hand his estimated £100,000 overall bd played the queen of eluts earnings from royalties, in wherempa West grabbed his rights and newspaper articles
cerit played the me and he employs today a secretary, a tive of spoiles, Now South bad | housekeeper, and a chauffeur, to go down two tricks so that and has formed
It was George Devine, the
new
PATRICIA LEWIS HOLIDAY REPORTER
Yet the fourlat trade is boom- ing in Cornwall,
The hotels this thing of knowing wheres everywhere are booked soildly them there sharks will be." throughout the summer and Mr Moscicy is even building up his A blonde
The
winter cilentele with gimmick of not charging guesta for
any day there's fog or an called Peter Inch of snow.
Shark cash
booms
Apart from sharks, pixler, and clotted cream Cornwall 15
getting ready for her autumn exhibition in New York, Sho fold mo that despite over- increasing commerciallant the artists' colony still flourishes in the town.
"The French Riviera? No. I wouldn't say it's like that. But parts of Cornwall remind me very much of the Greek islands of the Aegean,"
Perhaps that's the reason so many solid city-citizens seem to have given up all to settle in this part of the world.
Over at Lamorna Cova I met Dennis Law, one-time successful electrical engineer, who and denly threw up his job and fuiffled a lic's ambition by coming to Cornwall to paint.
"It seemed that the moro Lenior
the 1 'became uninteresting was the work," ho
more
sald as his wife poured ten in their rocky garden,
"So I finally mado the decision and brought the family down here, You can't make any money painting, but I just get by. I've never been happier."
For simple
famous for its artists' colonies pleasures
But that was yesterday, when. Today the sun was shining. the land sky, and Bea has
engelle director of the the overnight express, the local Rivieras-their physical simulia ruddy faced Frunk Vinnicom smoking blonde in bell-bottoms windowa against the threatening
English Stage Company (it runs London's Royal Court Theatre), who first read "Look Back In Anger" Bo had advertised for
play to open his new season with a bang and there, among the many scripts that had arrived in the nest post, was his
answer.
Basically, the play won tungle of violent emotions. had no conventional plot; it had
D
It
le physical action; its setting But was a dismal garrel fat. the characters a steering, intellectual lower-middle-class and his forlom, upper-middle- whe--were electrically clase realistic.
Devine read the play at а sliting, excitedly showed it to a friend, and went in search of the
author. This entailed driving to Chiswick, und being raved in a leaking dinghy over the Thames 10 a cladated house-boat.
But, despite the excitement, "Look Back in Anger" seemed at first us fit
wouldn't look the trump lead was worth 200 | panies:
Osborne Pro- back on succhis, The dally extra points to the defence. ductions, Breakthrough Produc- paper terlewa were tolf-hearted I do not think much of either tons, and Woodfall Produc- and the bookings thin. It was ive-spade bki. The two Northattons.
would not expect their partneri
WEST (D)
4A54
♥KJ632
+752
NORTH AK072 ❤ ФЛКО
108732
EAST
A None
AQUS J1086
11
★A G ★KI154
SOUTH
4QJ 300 0 3
1074
+943
East and North vulnerable
West North Et Bouil
1♥ Double 1♥
Pass Pass 5 Pass
Pasz PASS
Pass Double Pass
Opening lead-a i
to make five spades and I see
John
three com-
left to Kenneth Tynan, one of Success Buits. Osborne, Ho Britain's foremost dramaśle plays the Impresario with a crities, to rescue it in the Sun- happy zest, worries secretly day "Observer,
about the Inland Revenue man, although he says forcefully!
"Most people have
bocome too
damned neurotie about Income
Д surprise that
If "Look Back" then became glant success in London,
tax. It was 110 John Osburne- Productions last it had an ever greater your sold "The Entertainer" to impact on New York. The Woodfall Productions.
erilica were ananimous; the Osborne is ready at all times resultați audiences had Osbarna to air his views, and the Press pocketing over £1,000 a week, ready at all times to publish When Osborne's second effort, hem for their shock value. The Entertainer," opened in Some choice irabiples; ===
London with Laurchce Olivier Tory "still the rudest four playing the leading role, the Jetter word fkdirentre-was--fully, booked"""for"
The Church has repeatedly
ducked every moral Issue that
weeks ahead.
Osborne has, fr all three of
has been thrown at its head" his better-known plays, lunged The Monarchy-"Is the gold bitterly at the British Establish- Alling in a mouth full of decay, ment, that anonymous but While the cross 13 11 symbol omnipotent force of Rociety represented values, the crown which rules 50 million Britons simply represents a substitute the "They" of former genera- for values,
lons. His heroes are rebels
It is, perhaps, not inaccurate, furious prisoners Dt the
to suggest that Osborne enjoys Establlahment but, in the end, little or no point in taking a such splenetic observations, always frustrated. aure loss mirely because you are afraid that your opponents rather than feels them,
can make game.
North was looking at the Bee- king and nine of diamonds.
Does this still apply to the playwright, who is, after all, the model Osborne, 1950 Mel- lower Version, smiles -ubcom- John James Osborne gave his fortably. Surely there were two tricks for Arst angry bawl at Fulnum, in course, all the time," he says, "One changer, of him in that suit. Way it too
(the Establishment) much to hope to find another London, on December 12, 1920. But
Hla only audience then was his trluk somewhere?
doesn't spit in my face now. As Actually it father, 媳 commercial was right there in the diamond who died when John was an
artist for accepting me, I don't know." Since his angrier, алуз adolescent), Jil tall, bespec- Osborne, has travelled widely Lacled mother, barmald (New York is the only city for daughter of a West End pubil- a writer now), following his cant and pocaibly a nurse or biggest success, "Look Back in Anger," which has been staged The boy's carly years were in almost every European not happy ones. His father Janguage.
muit,
2÷CARD Sense♣♦|
North JA
Pass
Tha`bidding has been:
Kant South West PASS Pati
Pass You, South, hold:
?
42 VAREZ DAJES SK956
What do you dot A-Pass. You did not think much of your 'partner's three- xpada bid to start with and you oerialaly are not going to hori four clubs. Why rik giving your OPPONENÉS » game?
two..
a gamut of sickness,
wag an Incurable asthmallc. He has also divorced his Arat His young slater died early of wite, in 1957 ("I imagine I was meningitis, Gaborno himself ran pretty good hell to be married 4) and, also in 1957, married. At the £60-a-term Belmont again, this timo to the Royal Collego, in Devon, Osborne was Court's loading Indy, bloode "excellent" at English, accord- Mary Ure.
ing to his 1943 report. In fact, Ho has ventured ́ ́into Alan=" his headmaster's comment ran: making, with "Look Back" "His application is highly com- which was a success, "and, this mendable.” But, by. 1944, it had month; into musical-comedy, sunk to, "He must work more which was a disaster," steadily?" "And, In 1945, 10, 'But Osborne thrives "Although he worked well, in "disastery. Pestinpa" ha had be- all other things he hài dâs="come, too, mellow. - Kapnet, him backi'apon with a new crop of
TODAY'S QUESTION The bidding is the same sa în
· the question "Just answered_ex- cept that East has gone to four hearts after his partner's four- club bid. What do you do now?-appointed."
Answer on Monday
on
It was at this low point that furies-ond maro, theatrical Osborne was slapped by his - blatory.
because Lord Kimberley owna the Hall of Fulmouth aeroSS river, I arrived at St Mawes via
trale, the ferry, and the taxi,
Tho village
the WOR AIL town-saled traveller could Boals a-bobbins, hope for. beaches a-basking, whitewashed houses huddled round the har- bour walls. wooded creelcs acrom the water, and a wonder- ful character la waders and gold carrings known as Fefer the Viking boaiman,
Peter may be Prince of the Port, but the king of this Hi cominunity was an American from Florida called P. Harley Moseley.
The big take-over
A smali, voluble man with eyes as bright as brown but- tons, Mr Moseley "discovered" St Mawes when he was honey- mooning in Helford in 1940. Later that year he bought one
"I don't think there's any- where on the French or Italian Rivieras more beautiful than St Mawes," sold Mr Moseley-
"There's
and
eniled
I
Portrait painter Molly Forestier- Walker has studio In St Mawes, and round the point artist Charles Pears The great, growing attraction marine Dining with P. Harley, I dis
of the season now is shark lived in a converted boathouse blended into a drift of grey unist cussed this question of this two
locally by young, until his death last year. Ashing, led
His widow, a handsome pipe The Sicilian waiter, shutting the lles and their essential df-
owner of three Ash shops in ferences.
rain, is muttering. yachting cap Falmouth.
"Peter" gives sailing lessons. famous resident, novelist Daphno I rung up Cornwall's moal
sharks for me," he said over
nothing new about She talked to me in the attic Du Maurier at her house on the studios while a big, friendly dog rocke, "Menabilly," to see what German beer, "They been there lolloped around between the she thought of it all. all my life. We used to catch ples of still unframed canvases.
" met my husband through don't think the term riviera She chuckled: Well here I 'em of account of they'd steat the bolt off our lines, But the our mutual love of the sea," she has anything to do with the sun. "Ia boat was called the think it has to do with the past six years we made it a sald. business and charged £3 a red Wanderer, and mind-you can moisture,
Ece it there through the window "We certainly have a sofice for them that wants to come out with us."
--was the Juanita.
climate than the rest of Eng- "Of course,
"I haven't sailed much since land, but it's wrong to imagine know how I
How big do they run? his death-but one of these people stripped off and bronzing attractive, it looks to see yachts moored alongside the quay in "Well now, I do remember mornings I think 't just up- themselves all over the place, St Tropez-but WA have an eatching A barker
the West Country holiday appeals weighed. Channel I used to call my to the sort of person who likes 18ft. fide here and they'd look well over three ton and was cadets over there for a week's the simple things like walking pretty silly when it went out it str Jong-that there they did that.
shark cruise, I'll probably start again and alling without bothering fought tta for 11 hours or now the dog's got his sea lege." about the weather," thereabouts. But mostly they're about 8ft.
"And the sailing kere is probe ably the finest in the world. My aim is to reproduce the Continental atmosphere and I think I succeed...
BOOKED UP
"There
Is a lack of pave- ment life-there are no little cafes you can sit at and watch the world go by-and I have to admit there's nothing happening at night."
FOUR D. JONES
IF YOU WOULD STICK TO THE SCRIPT, YOU'D HAVE SEEN THE KOOP FLOODED TO PETER THE PEDDUNG PEASANT" NOW SET TO THAT VILLAGE AND MAKE SOME ENQUIRIES
OKAY, OKAY BUT THIS COULD. HAYG BEEN A
GOOD STORY.
FERDINAND
BRICK BRADFORD
THERE! NOW YOU CAN BE A SUN GAZER ON THE
VIEWING
GCRIEN
*
PETER THE PEDDLING |PEASANT-121 GO AN' ASK THE INNKEEPER.KG KAY KNOW IF HE'S
BEEN IN TOWN LATELY
GOOD GRİEF! LOOK AT THE ARS PLYING OFF THAT
[THING).
OLDE [BOOZE). HOUSE!
THOSE ARE STREAMERS OF GLOWING OAS CALLED SOLAR PROMINENCES. THEY MAY RISE MORT
· THAN FOXICZONO MILAST
INTO SPACE.
"Course you get some folks who want to 'ave a go and win these 'ere cups and then wo really 'ave to go looking way out in the Gulf Stream,
Anchor
ond
Bo across
The artists
keep coming
No, I'm afraid they'll never make
gay Mediterranean - type riviera out of Cornwall,
Over at St Ives, behind her But that is an attraction
doors, blue-painted
"It's a life-long job you see studio's
my old gent did it before me sculptress Barbara Hepworth is in itself-and why not?
HOW MANY MILES ARE
WE FROM THE BUN7
PARDON ME, MR INNKEEPERS, BUT I'M LOOKING FOR PETER THE PEDOLING PEASANT.
HAS HE BEEN IN TOWN?,
by MADDOCKS
"YES-BUT HE'S PETER THE
· PADDLING FEASANT NOW. THE PRESS GANG'S GOT IM
KRX
THEY PICKED "IM UP YESTERDAY HMM... Y&C.HANG
AROUND SON. I'LL SIT THE PREVS- GANA TO-ER-AVE A WORD WITH YOU
NEW
Lady Sheaffer
+
FON STALE FÊN
Naver before-a fountain per la exprsee your personal tala in fine jewelry. Never ger en ink bottle...
usa drop to enridge of - Shriji writing Wildə
TAPEN COG
· ABOUT 90, 000000 MILES! A LITTLE LESS THAN THE AVERAGE DISTANCE FROM THE MARTH
TO THE SUN!
By Mik
Doctors and patients prefer
mik
SWISSAIR
By Paul Norris
WHAT ARE WE YOU CUT WORRYING ABOUT?) 'THE FORE
AT BOOOD MILES 21 HALF WERD PER HOUR, WE HAVE PORNIS ALONS ABOUT FIVE MONTHS); AT: GOGOD TO TRY TO MIGB/ ALES PERİ DUR
San Miguel
Truly a
great beer