Waiting For Godot premiered in England in 1955, written by an Irishman but produced in Paris, firstly in French.  In 1956 there was one of the first “kitchen sink” dramas from John Osborne Look Back in Anger.  It wasn’t well received by the critics of the day except for the two most influential, Kenneth Tynan and Harold Hobson, and transferred from the Royal Court to the West End and to Broadway.

It features the original “Angry Young Man” Jimmy Porter (Billy Howle).  In the first act, set on a Sunday afternoon,  Jimmy and his flat mate Cliff Lewis (Iwan Davies) are arguing about who gets to read which Sunday newspaper. Jimmy’s wife Alison Porter (Ellora Torchia) meanwhile is centre stage ironing. She is not really getting into the debate which is dominated by Jimmy’s rhetoric,  which is loud and incessant.

Jimmy comes from a working class background and has some education but runs a sweet stall in the local market along with Cliff. It emerges that Alison comes from a middle class, military family, based in colonial India from 1914 until 1947, and who were not impressed by Alison’s attachment to Jimmy Porter.  Jimmy of course did not attempt to ingratiate himself with his in laws, instead insulting them by being articulately offensive.