Editing Look Back in Anger (section)

==Background of the play==

Written in 17 days in a deck chair on [[Morecambe]] Pier,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/mar/30/how-look-back-in-anger-john-osborne|title=Look Back in Anger: how John Osborne liberated theatrical language|author=Michael Billington|work=The Guardian|access-date=2 April 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/tag/look-back-in-anger/|title=Look Back In Anger « Another Nickel in the Machine|access-date=2 April 2016}}</ref> ''Look Back in Anger'' was a strongly autobiographical piece based on Osborne's unhappy marriage to actress Pamela Lane and their life in cramped accommodation in [[Derby]].<ref>Osborne 1991, pp 1–4</ref> While Osborne aspired towards a career in theatre, Lane was more practical and materialistic.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}} It also draws from Osborne's earlier life; for example, the wrenching speech of witnessing a loved one's death was a replay of the death of his father, Thomas.

What it is best remembered for, though, are Jimmy's tirades. Some of these are directed against generalised British middle-class smugness in the post-atomic world. Many are directed against the female characters, a very distinct echo of Osborne's uneasiness with women, including his mother, Nellie Beatrice, whom he describes in his autobiography ''[[A Better Class of Person]]'' as "hypocritical, self-absorbed, calculating and indifferent".<ref>Osborne 1982</ref> Madeline, the lost love Jimmy pines for, is based on [[Stella Linden]], the older rep-company actress who first encouraged Osborne to write.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Corliss |first=Richard |date=1995-01-09 |title=The First Angry Man: John Osborne (1929-1994) |url=https://time.com/archive/6726661/the-first-angry-man-john-osborne-1929-1994/ |access-date=2024-12-12 |website=TIME |language=en}}</ref> After the first production in London, Osborne began a relationship with [[Mary Ure]], who played Alison; he divorced his first wife (of five years) Pamela Lane to marry Ure in 1957.