From Coward and Rattigan to Osborne: Or the Enduring Importance of Look Back in Anger

Critics such as Dan Rebellato and Dominic Shellard are questioning the seminal influence of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger on the development of post-war British drama. The result is a renewed appreciation for the plays of Noël Coward and Terrence Rattigan. The present article seeks to define the contribution of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger to contemporary British drama by comparing it with Coward's The Vortex and Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea. It argues for Look Back in Anger's enduring importance, claiming that it assumes a more complex and troubling relationship between perception, cognition, and articulation.