Renaissance Theatre Company both the theatre and television productions of "Look Back in Anger" by John Osborne, presented first in Belfast then in London at the Lyric Theatre, starring Branagh as Jimmy Porter and Emma Thompson as Alison. Renaissance moved into different mediums such as Branagh's Academy Award-winning film version of Henry V, but also by producing three Shakespeare plays on radio: "Hamlet", "Romeo and Juliet", and finally, "King Lear" starring Sir John Gielgud. The company's last two major stage productions were "Uncle Vanya" (with Richard Briers and Peter Eyre) and "Coriolanus" produced in conjunction with the Chichester Festival Theatre and starring Kenneth
John Osborne newly formed English Stage Company at London's Royal Court Theatre. Formed by actor-manager and artistic director George Devine, the company had seen its first three productions flop and urgently needed a success if it was to survive. Devine was prepared to gamble on this play because he saw in it a ferocious and scowling articulation of a new post-war spirit. Osborne was living on a leaky houseboat on the River Thames at the time with Creighton, stewing up nettles from the riverbank to eat. So keen was Devine to contact Osborne that he rowed out to the boat to tell