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London
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Hammersmith
& Fulham |
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| Plays |
LOOK
BACK IN ANGER
by
John Osborne
(1956) |
The
playwright and screenwriter John Osborne was born as
John James Osborne in Fulham in 1929.
He wrote the game-changing play Look Back in Anger,
a milestone in British theatre which premiered at London's
Royal Court in 1956.
Part of its power was that it gave voice to a generation who
until that point had none: the young men who felt betrayed
and increasingly angry at the their lack of prospects in a
post-war Britain.
Osborne's play triggered future generations of writers to
work in the theatre with themes and dialogue which were then
thrilling and taboo-breaking. It changed British theatre.
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| London
| Hammersmith & Fulham |
The
County of London was formed in 1889 from parts of the ancient counties
of Middlesex, Kent and Surrey, with
the City of London remaining an independent body.
In 1965 Greater London was formed,
taking in the rest of Middlesex (which no longer existed as a county)
together with parts of Essex and Hertfordshire and further areas of
Kent and Surrey.
Greater
London is made up of 13 Inner and 19 Outer London boroughs together
with the City of London.
Hammersmith and Fulham once lay in Middlesex and
is today one of the 13 boroughs making up Inner London. It borders
the River Thames to its south and to the east the London borough of
Kensington and Chelsea.
London Boroughs |
| Actors
and Directors |
The actor Hugh Grant was
born in Hammersmith in 1960.
He attracted critical acclaim for his debut professional film role
in the Merchant-Ivory production of E.M. Forster's Maurice
(1987).
He appeared in Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon (1992) and in the
Merchant-Ivory production of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the
Day (1993). In 1994 he starred in the runaway success Four
Weddings and a Funeral which brought him global fame.
He starred in many successful romantic-comedies and now and then showed
some of his early edginess: in 2018 he played Jeremy Thorpe, the disgraced
British politician, in the BBC television miniseries A Very British
Scandal and in 2019 played a corrupt private investigator in Guy
Ritchie's The Gentlemen.
 Hugh
Grant (1994)
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| Anglo-Saxons
and Danes |
|
Anglo-Saxon Kings
Danish Kings |
The
borough once lay in Middlesex which once formed the kingdom
the kingdom of the Middle Saxons, so
named because their kingdom lay between those of the East Saxons (Essex)
and the West Saxons (Wessex).
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| Writers
and Poets |
In
1929 the actor, playwright and screenwriter John
Osborne was born as John James Osborne in Fulham. After working
as a journalist and stage actor he defined post-war theatre in Britain
with his third play Look Back in Anger which premiered in London
in 1956.
The play showed a new generation of young working-class men who felt
betrayed and frustrated by post-war Britain. Osborne was the first
in what became known as the Angry Young Men, writers who created
a new genre: the kitchen sink drama, which showed working-class Britain
as it really was.
Osborne wrote screenplays too and was awarded an Academy Award for
his screenplay adaptation of Tom Jones (1963).
John
Osborne
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William Morris Society
