The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan - Softcover

Tynan, Kenneth; Lahr, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747558418 ISBN 13: 9780747558415

Publisher: Bloomsbury, 2002

Synopsis

A brilliant and feared critic, Kenneth Tynan was a nabob of the National Theatre alongside Laurence Olivier, and he was also the daring impresario who created "Oh Calcutta". He was a notorious eccentric, a louche sophisticate: connoisseur of cuisine, wine, literature and women. Where else could you find such a judicious blend of aesthetics, theatre lore, love, marriage, sex and politics? These sizzling diaries will remind older readers of a man whose reputation as the greatest critic of the twentieth century is still unchallenged and introduce younger readers to an electrifying writer who simply could not be boring.

About this title

About the Author

John Lahr has been writing about theatre and popular culture for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of sixteen books, among them NOTES ON A COWARDLY LION: THE BIOGRAPHY OF BERT LAHR, PRICK UP YOUR EARS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOE ORTON, DAME EDNA EVERAGE AND THE RISE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, and SHOW AND TELL.

From Publishers Weekly

Every so often a book proves so compelling that certain sections beg to be read aloud the "hey, listen to this!" syndrome. Readers of Tynan's rambunctious recollections better rehearse their oratory, as every page here contains a minimum of two such passages. These entries, consistently fascinating, also manage to be witty (frequently of the laugh-out-loud variety), thought-provoking (few sacred cows escape Tynan's dead-on skewering) or raunchy (not a few sections should carry an "R" rating). Tynan, who in 1980 succumbed to a years-long battle with pulmonary emphysema (at age 53), was one of Britain's foremost drama critics; here, he spent two seasons as theater critic for the New Yorker. Along with Laurence Olivier, he helped found London's National Theater, where he functioned as literary manager for 10 years. Not surprisingly, Tynan dissects theatrical foibles and politicking with a keen inside perspective; he can also discourse on the European common market, Spaniards' attitudes toward homosexuality, cricket, French cuisine, Ethel Merman and much more. He's eminently quotable, often suggesting Oscar Wilde on ecstasy. Celebrated names are not merely dropped (from Katharine Hepburn and Princess Margaret to W.H. Auden and Jerry Lewis), but integral to his revelatory anecdotes. Colorful turns of phrase proliferate (a hearse is a "sepulchral flivver"; a luncheon-club group, aspiring to Algonquin Round Table status, is a "lovable, bawdy throng of deaf, drunken, droning monologuists"; Cordova is "a fetid yawn of a city"). Nor does Tynan shy away from his own perspicacity: indeed, there are many spanking good passages here about, well, good spanking (Tynan's sexual activity of choice).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0747558418
• ISBN 13: 9780747558415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448