"
Angry young men" is a group of mostly
working and
middle class British playwrights and
novelists who became prominent in the 1950s.
[1] The group's leaders included
John Osborne and
Kingsley Amis.
[2] The phrase was originally coined by the
Royal Court Theatre's press officer to promote John Osborne's
Look Back in Anger. It is thought to be derived from the autobiography of
Leslie Paul, founder of the
Woodcraft Folk, whose "Angry Young Man" was published in 1951. Following the success of the play, the label was later applied by British newspapers to describe young British writers who were characterized by a disillusionment with traditional English society. The term, always imprecise, began to have less meaning over the years as the writers to whom it was originally applied became more divergent and dismissed the label as useless.
The playwright John Osborne was the archetypal example, and his signature play Look Back in Anger (1956) attracted attention to a style of drama contrasting strongly with the genteel and understated works of Terence Rattigan that had been in fashion. Osborne's The Entertainer (1957) secured his reputation, with Laurence Olivier playing the protagonist Archie Rice.
Their political views were seen as radical, sometimes anarchistic, and they described social alienation of different kinds. They also often expressed their critical views on society as a whole, criticising certain behaviours or groups in different ways. On television, their writings were often expressed in plays in anthology drama series such as Armchair Theatre (ITV, 1956-68) and The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964-70); this leads to a confusion with the kitchen sink drama category of the early 1960s. However, in the introduction to a collection of essays by individuals associated with the movement, Tom Maschler commented "(T)hey do not belong to a united movement. Far from it; they attack one another directly or indirectly in these pages. Some were even reluctant to appear between the same covers with others whose views they violently oppose."[3]
As a catchphrase, the term was applied to a large, incoherently defined group, and was rejected by most of the writers to whom it was applied; see for instance "Answer to a Letter from Joe" by John Wain (Essays on Literature and Ideas, 1963). Some commentators, following publisher Tom Maschler, who edited a collection of political-literary essays by the "Angries" (Declaration, 1957), divided them into three groups
