Don't Look Back in Anger... Or Do! Wider Reading (Drama) 6: Look Back in Anger.

Look back in anger presents post-war youth as it really is. All the qualities are there - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of "official" attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour... the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who dies shall go unmourned...

Though it presents the classic tale of three mismatched housemates, this play is anything but conventional. Jimmy is a restless young man, whose blistering, apparent honesty makes him more enemies than friends. Cliff is his calm, collected counterpart, and is often caught between the violent conflicts which frequently occur between Jimmy and his wife, Alison. Well-bred and downtrodden, she is hiding a secret from Jimmy and cannot find a way to tell him.

Into this eclectic mix is thrown Helena, Alison's uptight friend. These characters are wound up like clockwork, and it is impossible to see where it will end.

The struggle for identity experienced by post-war youth has never been presented as well as it has been here. Similarly to Blache DuBois, John Osborne's characters must find a place in this strange, raw new world, or be lost.

Look Back in Anger - Identity Quotations