Almost a Gentleman: Volume II of His Autobiography

This is Volume II of Osborne's diary. It gives the reader an insider's view, with a large dose of ego. Since Osborne knows everyone who is anyone in London theatre, the cast of characters is large, including his wives and affairs. Volume II includes the years 1955-1966, when the "kitchen sink" theatre of the "angry young men" radically transformed English drama. On the flip side of all of this: apparently, the plays of Pinter and Beckett will survive; but Osborne's plays may be easily forgotten.

Having read A better Class of Person, of course I had to buy Almost a Gentleman. This picks up the story of John Osborne's life from 1955 and continues through 1966. The book was written a couple of years before Osborne's death in 1993, and he may or may not have planned to write a concluding volume. The writing is very good, although the subject matter may pall at times for someone who wasn't in England during the "Ban the Bomb" years. Osborne's love life is a different story, and gives the lie to all the tales of the sexually repressed Englishman. He flits from one wife to another with no satisfactory explanation other than "things weren't going too well": evidently he was sexually attracted to the next one and simply dumped the previous one. As Dr. Johnson said, "a triumph of hope over experience". He has little bad to say about his former wives, other than some amusing sarcasm for Penelope Gilliat, until we reach a postscript. This consists of some of the richest vituperation in literature, directed at Jill Bennett. It's the work of a cad, of course, as it was written on the occasion of Ms. Bennett's death, but it's nonetheless a gem.