Look Back in Anger Alison irons, just as her mother had done in "Look Back". The play was not a commercial success, closing after seven weeks. It was Osborne's last play. Look Back in Anger Look Back in Anger (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet impassive upper-middle-class wife Alison. The supporting characters include Cliff Lewis, an amiable Welsh lodger who attempts to keep the peace, and Helena Charles, Alison's snobbish friend. Osborne drew
John Osborne he wrote, "It is the best young play of its decade". Harold Hobson of "The Sunday Times" called Osborne "a writer of outstanding promise". During production, the married Osborne began a relationship with Mary Ure, and would divorce his wife, Pamela Lane, to marry Ure in 1957. The play became an enormous commercial success, transferring to the West End and to Broadway, touring to Moscow and a film version was released in May 1959 with Richard Burton and Mary Ure in the leading roles. The play turned Osborne from a struggling playwright into a wealthy and famous angry young man