Kenneth Tynan
Theatre Writings
Published on 11. January 2007
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-85459-050-3 (ISBN)
Description
Following on from his "Diaries and Letters", comes this long awaited selection of the best of Tynan's theatre criticism. 'I doubt,' wrote Kenneth Tynan in his review of "Look Back in Anger", 'if I could love anyone who did not wish to see this play'. Famous above all for his championship of the Angry Young Men at the Royal Court and for heralding Brecht, Beckett and Pinter, Tynan was not only the 20th century's most influential theatre critic, but his writing was itself a 'high-definition performance' - one of the qualities he always sought in others. This volume, selected and edited by Tynan's biographer, Dominic Shellard, brings together the best of Tynan's theatre writing drawn from his twelve years as a theatre critic (1951-63). Included are ground-breaking reviews of plays by Arthur Miller, John Osborne, T.S.Eliot and Noel Coward, as well as articles on such topics as Broadway musicals, censorship, Brecht in Berlin and the National Theatre, where he was to be Olivier's right-hand man - thus ending his career as a critic. All of Tynan's theatre criticism has been out of print for many years - a fact regularly lamented by reviewers.
This new, comprehensive selection will be the standard reference point for Tynan's work for years to come, as well as providing useful contexts for each review.
This new, comprehensive selection will be the standard reference point for Tynan's work for years to come, as well as providing useful contexts for each review.
Reviews / Votes
'Open his collected reviews at random and you find sentences in which perception is matched by Augustan balance... as these extracts prove, any editor today would give their eye teeth to have such a scintillating stylist and impassioned commentator at their command' Michael Billington, The Guardian 'Required reading for intelligent, irreverent young things... Theatre Writings is an infallible chronicle of a crucial phase in the history of this country's drama' New Statesman 'Kenneth Tynan sclerotic is more acute and entertaining than anyone else at their most superbly responsive.' Observer 'astonishing and unique literary voice... This welcome reissuing of his Theatre writing and Profiles is a timely reminder that there was more to him than a capacity to wear maroon couture and to spank botties. Every page is a circus act of dazzling wit, and insight, and humanity, and outrageous wordplay.' Sunday Times 'It has been a long time coming, but this book at last redresses an absurd negligence... There isn't a page of this book that doesn't contain some precision-tooled vignette or bon mot, cut and polished till it gleams just so... 'Tynan's achievement, as distilled into these two splendid collections... is to have raised prose criticism to the level of an art form, melding the melodic fluency of his sentences with a hawklike beadiness of observation. 'To read Tynan is to be thrilled into paying better and closer attention - which, in short, is the point of criticism in the first place.' Sunday TelegraphMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-85459-050-3 (9781854590503)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Book
01/2002
Nick Hern Books
Unfortunately, price unknown
Article exhausted; check for reprint
Persons
Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) left Oxford to become drama critic of the Evening Standard. After an influential spell on the Observer he joined Laurence Olivier's new National Theatre as its Literary Manager. He also devised and produced the notorious revue, Oh! Calcutta. Dominic Shellard is Head of the English Department at Sheffield University. He has published seven books on British theatre, notably Kenneth Tynan: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).