Robert Tanitch’s Round-Up of Books No 12
ORSON WELLES One Man Band by Simon Callow (Jonathan Cape £25). The third volume has a tremendous panache, matching Welles’s own bravura and extraordinary energy, giving a vivid account of his personality and his productions: Moby Dick, Rhinoceros, The Trial, and Chimes at Midnight. The latter was seen first on stage in Dublin (huge contretemps with Michael MacLiammoir) and then on film. Welles’s life is a life like no other and becomes a sort of continuous and barely contained implosion. Quintessential romantic and professional experimenter, he behaves very badly in life and work. He was brutal, insensitive and exploitative. The research is terrific and Callow writes so entertainingly. The fourth volume is eagerly awaited.
JOHN OSBORNE ‘Anger is not about…’ by Peter Whitebrook (Oberon £20). I enjoyed Look Back in Anger so much I saw it twice in quick succession. Osborne’s debut was a major turning point in British theatre, as major as the arrival of T W Robertson 100 years before. French windows were out. Kitchen sinks were in. Noel Coward and Terence Rattigan were out in the cold, too. Coward and Rattigan are back in a big way. But what of Osborne? He has created roles which actors will want to play: Jimmy Porter, Archie Rice, Luther, Bill Maitland and Alfred Redl. He had a fearsome and impressively eloquent talent for personal abuse and he deployed it superbly on stage and indeed also in his private correspondence and with his wives. Kenneth Branagh will be reviving The Entertainer in 2016 and could well kick start a revival.
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