Play Details
Context
Artistic Director
William Gaskill
Co-Production With Criterion Theatre
Dates Performed
Tuesday 29th October 1968
Main House (Downstairs)
Tuesday 10th December 1968
Criterion Theatre
Play Details
Synopsis
A one-room flat in the English Midlands in the 1950s
Jimmy lives with his girlfriend Alison and best mate Cliff, tormenting both of them with his fury at the world. When Alison gets pregnant and her friend, Helena comes to visit, she and Jimmy’s relationship comes to an end. Without her, his impotent rage only burns even more.
Cast & Creative
Cast
Jane Asher
Cast
Victor Henry
Cast
Edward Jewesbury
Cast
Caroline Mortimer
Cast
Martin Shaw
Designer
Tony Abbott
Designer
Donald Taylor
Costume
Anne Gainsford
What the readers said
A realist, single location, three-act drama, set over a period of a few months.
Rain pours. A car crash leads TV presenter Stella to the rural home of grieving ex-photographer David. Haunted by CCTV scenes of a girl being abducted, Paula wanders the streets. Alex and his mates head out for a night of hedonism in the city’s gay clubs.
What does it tell us about the past and present?
The way The Mother and Shirley openly talk about domestic violence towards women in the home by their partners (current and Ex’s) screamed off the page, because it had such a air of normality about it. Massive shift since me too movement – wonder how this would resonate now?
What does the play speak to?
Look Back in Anger’s influence on British playwriting in the latter half of the 20th Century was so huge that it’s hard to identify just one or two texts that it speaks to. Shelagh Delaney’s ‘A Taste of Honey’ is another major work from this period that is seen as sitting in a similar genre and that also went on to become an often-revived classic.
