Angry Young Men
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Angry Young Men (or Angries for short) is a journalistic catchphrase applied to a number of British playwrights and novelists from the mid-1950s. Their political views were seen as radical, sometimes even anarchic, and they described social alienation of different kinds. They also often expressed their critical views on society as a whole, critizising certain behaviors or groups in different ways. On television, their writings were often expressed in plays in anthology drama series such as Armchair Theatre (ITV, 1956-68) and The Wednesday Play (BBC, 1964-70); this leads to a confusion with the kitchen sink drama category of the early 1960s.
The group was considered to include Kingsley Amis, John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe, John Braine, and Colin Wilson; also sometimes Stuart Holroyd, Bill Hopkins, Philip Larkin and John Wain. That made the classification incoherent enough — a generation of young provincial writers, of varied talent and experience, mixed in with some Oxbridge malcontents. The early model AYM was William Cooper (who was both Cambridge-educated and a 'provincial' writer in his frankness and material) and his 1950 Scenes from Provincial Life.
See also: angry young man, applied to Amitabh Bachchan.
Reference
- The Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s (2002) by Humphrey Carpenter