Terence Rattigan by other writers: Other works including discussions on Rattigan's theatre: Terence Rattigan Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan, CBE (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist. He was one of England's most popular mid twentieth century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He wrote "The Winslow Boy" (1946), "The Browning Version" (1948), "The Deep Blue Sea" (1952) and "Separate Tables" (1954), among many others. A troubled homosexual, who saw himself as an outsider, his plays centred on issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships, and a world of repression and reticence. Terence Rattigan was born in 1911
Terence Rattigan old fashioned and "pre-war" after the overnight success in 1956 of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" began the era of kitchen sink dramas by the writers known as the Angry Young Men. Rattigan responded to this critical disfavour with some bitterness. His plays "Ross", "Man and Boy", "In Praise of Love", and "Cause Célèbre", however show no sign of any decline in his talent. Rattigan explained that he wrote his plays to please a symbolic playgoer, "Aunt Edna", someone from the well-off middle-class who had conventional tastes; his critics frequently used this character as the basis for belittling him.