Twentieth-century English literature Terence Rattigan and Noël Coward were challenged in the 1950s by these Angry Young Men, in plays like John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" (1956). Arnold Wesker and Nell Dunn also brought social concerns to the stage. Again in the 1950s, the absurdist play "Waiting for Godot" (1955) (originally "En attendant Godot", 1952), by Irish writer Samuel Beckett profoundly affected British drama. The Theatre of the Absurd influenced Harold Pinter (born 1930), author of (The Birthday Party, 1958), whose works are often characterised by menace or claustrophobia. Beckett also influenced Tom Stoppard (born 1937) ("Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", 1966).
Waiting for Godot "Catullus" in the first Faber edition. This became "Adam" in the American edition. Beckett's only explanation was that he was "fed up with Catullus". Vivian Mercier described "Waiting for Godot" as a play which "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." Mercier once questioned Beckett on the language used by the pair: "It seemed to me...he made Didi and Gogo sound as if they had