Kenneth Tynan

Tynan's reviews in The Observer from 1954 made readers see performances in physical detail: how an actor moved, paused or held a stage. His 1956 review of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, which said he could not love anyone who did not wish to see it, helped turn a divisive play into a landmark, and his descriptions of Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson are still the best record of how they acted. He then became the first literary manager of the National Theatre. Start with the collection Curtains or the later selection Tynan on Theatre.