Look Back in Anger (1959 film) Look Back in Anger (1959 film) Look Back in Anger is a 1959 British drama film starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom and Mary Ure and directed by Tony Richardson. The film is based on John Osborne's eponymous play about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man (Jimmy Porter) his upper-middle-class, impassive wife (Alison) and her snooty best friend (Helena Charles). Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace. The character of Ma Tanner, only referred to in the play, is here brought to life by Edith Evans as a dramatic device to emphasise the class
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