John Osborne backdrop to the play. An experimental piece, "The Entertainer" was interspersed with music hall performances. Most critics praised the development of an exciting writing talent: The words are Billy Rice's, though as with much of Osborne's work they could be said to represent his own sentiments, as with this quote from "Look Back in Anger": Osborne followed "The Entertainer" with "The World of Paul Slickey" (1959) a musical that satirizes the tabloid press, the unusual television documentary play "A Subject of Scandal and Concern" (1960), and the double bill "Plays for England", comprising "The Blood of the Bambergs" and "Under
Look Back in Anger 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". Madeline, the lost love Jimmy pines for, is based on Stella Linden, the older rep-company actress who first encouraged Osborne to write. After the first production in London, Osborne began a relationship with Mary Ure, who played Alison; he divorced his