The Winslow Boy The Winslow Boy The Winslow Boy is an English play from 1946 by Terence Rattigan based on an incident involving George Archer-Shee in the Edwardian era. The incident took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne. Set against the strict codes of conduct and manners of the age, "The Winslow Boy" is based on a father's fight to clear his son's name after the boy is expelled from Osborne Naval College for stealing a five-shilling postal order. To clear the boy's name was imperative for the family's honour; had they not done so, they would have been shunned by their
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.