Sara Martín Alegre P08/04540/02135

N.� F.� Simpson
, 
Joe� Orton
and 
David� Rudkin
. This
was anti-middle class drama for the middle classes, and the limits of upward
mobility seemed to be the centre of interest for the new playwrights' often
satirical portrait of English society.
The new social realists of the 1970s –
Peter� Nichols
, 
David� Storey
, 
Simon
Gray
– fused social satire with G. B. Shaw's problem plays to offer a bleak
portrait of suburbia, also shared by more conventional plays, such as the
comedies of 
Alan�Ayckbourn
.
More committed to the political left was the work of 
Edward�Bond
, 
Howard
Brenton
, 
David�Hare
, 
David�Edgar
, 
Trevor�Griffiths
, 
Peter�Barnes
and 
John
Arden
, among others, which flourished in the smaller theatres under the
influence of Brecht's example but later came to be accepted by the West End.
Angry Young Men
A journalistic catch phrase
loosely applied to a number
of British playwrights and
novelists of the mid-1950s,
including Amis, Osborne,
Sillitoe and Wilson, whose
political views were radical or
anarchic.

---

© FUOC
• P08/04540/02135
26
Post-War English Literature 1945-1990
Apart from the experimentalists and the politically committed playwrights,
the English stage has sustained an important number of more traditional
dramatists, such as 
Alan�Ayckbourn
, 
Michael�Frayn
, 
Christopher�Hampton
,
James� Saunders
, 
Anthony� Shaffer
,