March 26, 1958
JOHN OSBORNE: The tumultuous premiere in Athens of a play by one of the more pioneering British writers known collectively as the «Angry Young Men» was followed by a scuffle in a neighboring bar last Sunday. Most of the members of the group were present. Among those involved in the incident were the playwright John Osborne, the 25-year-old writer Colin Wilson and the author of the play, Stuart Holroyd. The play, «The Tenth Chance,» was playing at the Royal Court Theater and was booed by the audience in the third act. Elaine Dundy, the wife of the critic Kenneth Peacock Tynan, stamped out of the theater. After the curtain fell, many members of the audience went to a neighboring bar where Tynan was heard telling Holroyd that his play was rubbish. Wilson then threatened to throw Tynan out, prompting the poet Christopher Logue to exchange insults with Wilson, but who suddenly found himself spread-eagled on the floor. He later said that his chair had toppled over. Dundy described the play, which tells the story of three Norwegians in a Nazi concentration camp in Oslo, as «illogically sadistic.» (Ed. note: Osborne’s play «Look Back in Anger» was first performed in Greece in 1960.)
