In 1961 John Osborne took his theatrical ferocity into print with a vitriolic 'Letter to My Fellow Countrymen' in the left‑wing Tribune. Reacting to the post‑Berlin Wall atmosphere, Osborne wrote incendiary passages imagining the deaths of political leaders and castigating Britain with language that a contemporary journalist called 'murderous'. The column triggered an immediate uproar: conservative commentator Peregrine Worsthorne warned that the language might reflect a wider, dangerous resentment; trade‑union leader Jack Jones, by contrast, praised the sentiment as genuine socialist rage. The piece underlined Osborne's capacity to alienate across the spectrum — he attacked both Labour and Conservative figures — and cemented his role not simply as a dramatist but as a public provocateur whose political pronouncements generated as much scandal as his plays.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1960s
The 'murderous' Tribune letter that shocked Britain: Osborne's 1961 'Letter to My Fellow Countrymen'
John Osborne / Tribune letter / 1960s
In 1961 John Osborne took his theatrical ferocity into print with a vitriolic 'Letter to My Fellow Countrymen' in the left‑wing Tribune. Reacting to the post‑Berlin Wall atmosphere, Osborne wrote incendiary passages imagining the deaths of political leaders and castigating Britain with language that a contemporary journalist called 'murderous'. The column triggered an immediate uproar: conservative commentator Peregrine Worsthorne warned that the language might reflect a wider, dangerous resentment; trade‑union leader Jack Jones, by contrast, praised the sentiment as genuine socialist rage. The piece underlined Osborne's capacity to alienate across the spectrum — he attacked both Labour and Conservative figures — and cemented his role not simply as a dramatist but as a public provocateur whose political pronouncements generated as much scandal as his plays.
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