A better class of person

Fülszöveg

JOHN OSBORNE A Better Class of Person An Autobiography: 1929-1956, This first instalment of autobiography telis of John Osborne's early life up to Look Back in Anger. A childhood spent in Fulham, Véntnor and Surrey sut^urbia against a background whose cast of London characters (though his father was.of.Welsh stock)- in the shape of parents, ^randparents, uncles and auntsembodies all the nuances of English.class between upper-lower and lower-middíe. (Grandfather Grove, the Smartest ftiÜlicaTT rn London, prefigured BillyRice-.) ' Adolescegce included lying in a field watching the Battle of iBritain, or in the Anderson shelter listening to Germán Éombers (one bf whom bombed mother off the lavatory) as well as intense friendships and equally intense reading and cinema-going Cl knew *the dialogue..of~J"/?e- Four. Feathers and The Prisoner of Zenda by heart ...'). After life in a series of rented rooms with Móther came a sojourn at St. Michael's, the quintessential English boarding... Tovább

Fülszöveg

JOHN OSBORNE A Better Class of Person An Autobiography: 1929-1956, This first instalment of autobiography telis of John Osborne's early life up to Look Back in Anger. A childhood spent in Fulham, Véntnor and Surrey sut^urbia against a background whose cast of London characters (though his father was.of.Welsh stock)- in the shape of parents, ^randparents, uncles and auntsembodies all the nuances of English.class between upper-lower and lower-middíe. (Grandfather Grove, the Smartest ftiÜlicaTT rn London, prefigured BillyRice-.) ' Adolescegce included lying in a field watching the Battle of iBritain, or in the Anderson shelter listening to Germán Éombers (one bf whom bombed mother off the lavatory) as well as intense friendships and equally intense reading and cinema-going Cl knew *the dialogue..of~J"/?e- Four. Feathers and The Prisoner of Zenda by heart ...'). After life in a series of rented rooms with Móther came a sojourn at St. Michael's, the quintessential English boarding school, ended by expulsiön and followed by a term as the Ace Reporter of Gas World in the era of Crippsian austerity. A faiíed National Service medical and a misguided engagement, Csnatched pelvic felicities during the quickstep'), not to mention a complete lack of qualifications and experience, lead to the job of ASM to the Number Two Tour of No Room at the /nn and first steps in dramaturgy by a writer already impatient with the theatrical conventions (like Getting the Second Act Right) favoured by collaborator Stella, Leading Lady and (slightly) Older Woman. The world of British provinciai rep of the fifties of Leicester, llfracombe and Bridgewater is the background to the composition of Epitaph for George Dillon and Look Back in Anger, and the book ends with the acceptance of the latter by the newly-formed English Stage Company under George Devine. John Osborne has written a pungent, witty and ruthlessly compassionate chapter of social and cultural history. It will be a classic of English autobiography. Vissza