John Osborne The Gift of Friendship DVD (TPDVD150)
In 1956 John Osborne changed British theatre with Look Back in Anger. Jimmy Porter, described as the first ‘angry young man’, railed against national and personal apathy, and the pain of being alive. The play seized the imagination of an increasingly disillusioned post-war British public. A unique aspect of this two-hour film is the discovery of extracts from the original stage performances of Osborne’s most famous plays, material of great historical importance not seen for over 40 years – Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer; Albert Finney in Luther; Nicol Williamson in Inadmissable Evidence; Robert Stephens in Epitaph for George Dillon; Jill Bennett in A Patriot for Me, with a very young John Osborne as Reidl. Plus behind-thescenes footage from Osborne’s Oscar-winning film Tom Jones, as well as contributions from Richard Burton, David Hare, Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson, Claire Bloom, John Heilpern (Osborne’s authorised biographer), Peter Nichols, Christopher Hampton, Jocelyn Herbert, Charles Wood, Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson, Natasha Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, Peter Bowles, Ben Walden, Terence Frisby, Bill Bryden, Sylvia Syms, Bill Kenwright, Robert Fox, Anthony Page, and the late Helen Osborne.