John Osborne's reputation as a dramatist has been slightly tarnished by his score-settling two-volume autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost A Gentleman (1991). For many, Osborne remains the epitome of British theatre's Angry Young Man generation through his powerful first play Look Back in Anger (1956), a classic of post-war British drama - but so too are The Entertainer (1957) and Inadmissible Evidence (1965). Set against the uncertainty of the Suez crisis, The Entertainer is a black domestic comedy featuring a shabby family of misplaced souls headed by the decent old gent Billy Rice whose aspirations of self-betterment have been distorted by including sneering, sinning Archie Rice - a role forever linked to the late Laurence Olivier. The decline of the squabbling clan is paralleled by the collapse of the Empire. At its heart is raw frustration and anger communicated through deft, hilariously mundane dialogue. The same ingredients fuel the wicked, dazzling Inadmissable Evidence with its tour de force opening dream sequence inventively borrowed from the European Absurdists. It is the story of Bill Maitland, a sexcrazed solicitor whose flair for lying eventually brings him low. Osborne died in 1994. Time should prove that only Pinter's best can match that of vintage Osborne.
