LOOK BACK IN ANGER

by John Osborne
1.1
JIMMY: God, how I hate Sundays! Its always so depressing, always the same. We never
seem to get any further, do we? Always the same ritual. Reading the papers, drinking tea,
ironing. A few more hours, and another week gone. Our youth is sleeping away. Do you
know what?
CLIFF: Whats that?
JIMMY: Oh, nothing, nothing. Damn you, damn both of you. Damn them all.

JIMMY: Why do I spend ninepence on that damned paper every week. Nobody reads it
except me. Nobody can be bothered. No one can raise themselves out of their delicious
sloth. () Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. () Lets
pretend we are human beings, and that were actually alive.

JIMMY: Hes [Hugh] not only got guts, but sensitivity as well. Thats about the rarest
combination I can think of. None of your friends have got either.
ALISON: Jimmy, please - dont go on.
JIMMY: Your friends - theres a shower for you.
CLIFF: Dry up. Let her get on with my trousers.
JIMMY: Dont think I could provoke her. Nothing I could do would provoke her. Not even if I
were to drop dead.

JIMMY: Yes, thats the little womans family. You know Mummy and Daddy, of course. And
dont let the Marquess of Queensberry manner fool you. Theyll kick you in the groin while
youre handing your hat to the maid. As for Nigel and Alison. () Theyre what they sound
like: sycophantic, phlegmatic and pusillanimous.

JIMMY: Oh, hell! Now the bloody bells have started! () Wrap it up, will you? Stop ringing
those bells! Theres somebody going crazy in here! I dont want to hear them!

JIMMY: Oh, my dear wife, youve got so much to learn. I only hope you learn it one day. If
only something - something would happen to you, and wake you out of your beauty sleep!
If you could have a child, and it would die. Let it grow, let a recognisable human face
emerge from that little mass of indiarubber and wrinkles. Please - if only I could watch you
face that. I wonder if you might even become a recognisable human being yourself. But I
doubt it.
2.1

HELENA: Its almost as if he wanted to kill someone with it. And me in particular. Ive never
seen such hatred in someones eyes before. Its slightly horrifying. Horrifying and oddly
exciting.

ALISON: Mummy has always said that Jimmy is utterly ruthless, but she hasnt met Hugh.
He takes the first prize for ruthlessness - from all comers. Together, they were frightening.
They both came to regard me as a sort of hostage from those sections of society they had
declared war on.

ALISON: Oh yes, we all know what you did for me! You rescued me from the wicked
clutches of my family, and all my friends!

JIMMY: Every time I sat on the edge of his bed, to listen to him talking or reading to me, I
had to fight back my tears. At the end of twelve months, I was a veteran. () You see, I
learnt at an early age what it was to be angry - angry and helpless. And I can never forget
it. I knew more about - love betrayal and death, when I was ten years old than you will
probably ever know all your life.

2.2
COLONEL: Sweet-stall. It does seem an extraordinary thing for an educated young man to
be occupying himself with.

3.2
HELENA: Theres no place for people like that any longer - in sex, or politics, or anything.
Thats why hes so futile. Sometimes, when I listen to him, I feel he thinks hes still in the
middle of the French Revolution. And thats where he ought to be, of course. He doesnt
know where he is or where hes going. Hell never do anything. Hell never amount to
anything.

ALISON: Dont you understand? Its gone! Its gone! That - that helpless human being
inside my body. I thought it was so safe, and secure in there. Nothing could take it from
me. It was mine, my responsibility. But its lost.
All I wanted was to die. I never knew what it was like. I didnt know it could be like that! I
was in pain, and all I could think of was you, and what Id lost. I thought: if only - if only he
could see me now, so stupid, and ugly and ridiculous. This is what hes been longing for
me to feel. ()
JIMMY: Dont. Please dont I cant Youre all right now. Please, I - I Not any more.