a stage role they had not had for centuries. Beckett used directors, but liked to
gauge every detail of his plays, every word, movement, gesture, syllable and tone of
voice. In 1962 the television actress Billie Whitelaw was sent a script to read, enti-
tled Play. It was by ‘a fairly bizarre writer called Samuel Beckett ... ’, she later
re called in a tape-recorded monologue. ‘On paper, it seemed to be about a man, his
wife and his mistress, all of whom were stuck in urns.’ She became Beckett’s
favourite actress, and her performance can be seen in a videotape of the BBC tele-
vision version ofNot I, a play in which a spotlit mouth speaks continuously and at
breathless speed for sixteen minutes, often recycling its topics and words. Lips,
teeth and tongue can be seen, not nose, chin or eyes. It gives ‘soliloquy’ a new
meaning. The effect is intense. Beckett did not stay in London, but his presence is
still alive in its theatre.John Osborne
The impact of Look Back in Anger (1956), by the actor John Osborne
(1929–1994),was due to its content and energy rather than to any novelty of
form.The working-class Jimmy Porter, married to Alison, a young woman of
conventional upper middle-class background, delivers colourful tirades directed
equally at the limitations of their lives and the pieties of her family, representing
what was soon called ‘the establishment’, a term originally referring to the legal
position of the Church of England but now extended to the inherited social set-
up. The remembered social cohesion of the war years gave a dramatic edge to
Jimmy’s ‘angry young man’ frustration at social inequality and the futility of
individual action. Osborne made the grotty flat with its Sunday newspapers and
ironing-board an image of its time.The Entertainer (1957) is his next-best play,
though protest has a good day out in Luther (1961).What the paper s called
‘kitchen-sink realism’ applies more to the subject-matter of films of that time,
which had switched focus from upper to lower social classes, and especially to the
mater ial of everyday television.384 14 · BEGINNING AGAIN: 1955–80
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) at a first night
performance, 25 April 1970. Reg Lancaster/
Express/Getty Images.