Kirjahaku

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.

The best of Kenneth Tynan's theatre criticism, selected and edited by his biographer Dominic Shellard - with a foreword by Tom Stoppard. This volume is an edited selection of theatre criticism by one of the most significant and influential writers on British theatre. Spanning the years 1944 to 1965, it includes all of Tynan's major theatre reviews and articles written for the Evening Standard, the Daily Sketch and the Observer. It also includes the text of his substantial 1964 speech to the Royal Society of Arts, setting out his vision for the National Theatre. Tynan's writings on theatre, according to eminent theatre historian Dominic Shellard, influenced the evolution of the whole of post-war theatre in Britain. And, with their characteristic mix of hyperbole, irreverence and prescience, they remain brilliantly entertaining today. 'You can open this book on almost any page and come across a phrase or a vignette which is the next best thing to having been there' Tom Stoppard, from his Foreword

In Oh! Calcutta! Kenneth Tynan has assembled a group of sketches which deal with almost every conceivable erotic fantasy and sexual reality that Western man has dreamt up or experienced. The distinguished roster of authors includes Samuel Beckett, Edna O'Brien, Jules Feiffer, Leonard Melfi, John Lennon, and, not to be outdone, Kenneth Tynan himself.

Louise Brooks swept to world-wide fame as Lulu, the incarnation of sexual free spirits, in the German silent film of 1928. Her perfect beauty, enigmatic sexuality and distinctive helmet of sleek black hair made her an icon, once seen never forgotten. Yet, after Lulu and its sequel, "Diary of a Lost Girl", her career encompassed only a handful of indifferent Hollywood movies before ending with puzzling abruptness in 1938. Self-confessedly caught in her spell, Kenneth Tynan, then one of the most highly regarded feature journalists in the world, tracked her down in 1979 for one of his longest New Yorker Profiles. He found her, aged 73, holed up in a two-room apartment in the industrial city of Rochester, New York, confined indoors by osteo-arthritis and deliberate reclusiveness but witty, intelligent, candid - and still sexy. One of the 50 pieces collected in Tynan's "Profiles", this 20,000 word mini biography offers a sample of Tynan at his best.

Tying-in with publication of Tynan's "Theatre Writings" comes this new edition of his famous "Profiles" of star performers, writers and directors - with a preface by Simon Callow. This volume collects fifty of Tynan's best and sharpest pieces on the celebrities he most admired, largely from the world of showbiz. From his first tribute to Orson Welles in his school magazine to weighty assessments of Tom Stoppard and - most famously of all - Louise Brooks, the original Lulu, Tynan wrote dazzlingly about those who gave, in his own phrase, 'high-definition performances'. Other profiles include: WC Fields, Alec Guinness, Peter Brook, Arthur Miller, Lenny Bruce, Eric Morecambe, James Cagney, John Gielgud, Greta Garbo, Bertolt Brecht, Humphrey Bogart, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward, Graham Greene, Bernard Shaw, Joan Littlewood, Laurence Olivier, and Mel Brooks.