Formed by actor-manager and artistic director George Devine, the company had seen its first three productions flop and urgently needed a success if it was to survive. Devine was prepared to gamble on this play because he saw in it a powerful articulation of a new post-war spirit. Osborne was living on a houseboat on the River Thames at the time with Creighton, eating stewed nettles from the riverbank. So keen was Devine to contact Osborne that he rowed out to the boat to tell him he would like to make the play the fourth production to enter repertory. The play was directed by Tony Richardson and starred Kenneth Haigh, Mary Ure and Alan Bates. George Fearon, a part-time press officer at the theatre, invented the phrase "angry young man". He told Osborne that he disliked the play and feared it would be impossible to market.