Looking Back
The link between the bells of St Peter's Church, Derby, and one of the 20th century's most famous plays
By Alan Rowe
"Oh, hell! Now the bloody bells have started! Wrap it up, will you? Stop ringing those bells! There's somebody going crazy in here! I don't want to hear them!"
That's certainly not the sort of reaction that we hope for when the bells of St Peter's church are ringing. Fortunately, this is not a real complaint, but the words of Jimmy Porter, the protagonist of John Osborne's play 'Look Back in Anger.'
During 1951, while working at a theatre in Bridgwater, the then little-known John Osborne met local actress Pamela Lane. They married a few months later and moved to London, staying with John's friend Anthony Creighton. Pamela later managed to get a job at Derby Playhouse, which had opened in a converted former Baptist chapel in Sacheveral Street, not far from St Peter's Church, during 1952. Pamela rented a room at 32 Ashbourne Road, while John remained in London.
Over time, John became increasingly frustrated at the rejection of his scripts. He was able to move in with Pamela in January 1954, after one of the other Ashbourne Road residents moved away. She arranged for him to join the Playhouse company, where he worked as a stage manager and actor. It has been suggested that the company's decision to employ him was more due to their not wanting to risk Pamela leaving rather than wishing to employ John.
John and Pamela's relationship deteriorated while at Ashbourne Road, and at the end of the season, when Pamela's contract at the Playhouse was renewed but John's was not, they separated. He returned to London. Pamela also moved, but only as far as an attic flat at 114 Green Lane, Derby. This was closer to the Playhouse, and also only two hundred yards from St Peters Church - well within earshot of the sound of the bells. While the view is now blocked by modern office buildings, at the time it would have been possible to see the tower from the flat's dormer window. John occasionally visited Pamela at the flat, and it was there that they eventually decided to separate permanently.
During May 1955, John began work writing the play that was to become 'Look Back in Anger.' While he later denied that it was autobiographical, many people (including Pamela herself) recognised aspects of Pamela and John's marriage. While the strained relationship between Jimmy and Alison Porter reflected John and Pamela's time at Ashbourne Road, it was the flat on Green Lane, with its sloping ceiling, dormer window and nearby bells, that provided the setting. John confirmed to Pamela that it was her flat that he had in mind when writing the play.
By early June the play was completed, with only minor amendments having been made to the first draft. The Derby Playhouse was supposedly offered the chance to be the first to stage it, but the offer was rejected, possibly because it was a bit too 'close to home'. Instead, it debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in London in May 1956, and was not performed in Derby until the 1960s. After initially negative reviews the play became popular. A press release referred to the author as an 'angry young man,' a phrase that stuck for both John Osborne and other writers influenced by his work. A new type of drama had been born.
The bells feature several times. After Jimmy Porter's initial expression of displeasure at their ringing, he links his dislike of them with his disdain for their landlady:
"I don't give a damn about Miss Drury - that mild old gentlewoman doesn't fool me, even if she takes in you two. She's an old robber. She gets more than enough out of us for this place every week. Anyway, she's probably in church, swinging on those bloody bells!"
The bells are heard again when Alison Porter and her friend Helena leave for church, and they also form a backdrop to another of Jimmy's outbursts, causing him to bang his fist against the window frame at the end:
"It's no good trying to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. And if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you'd better give up the whole idea of life, and become a saint. Because you'll never make it as a human being. It's either this world or the next. Oh, those bells!"
The sound of the bells represents an unwelcome intrusion of middle-class morality into both the flat and Jimmy's life, and his reaction to their sound is a sign of his resentment towards the establishment. When the bells ring as Pamela and Helena leave to go to the church, they signal Pamela's return to that middle-class world.
In 2016, the Derby Theatre (successor to the now-demolished Derby Playhouse) staged Look Back in Anger, 60 years after its first production. In another link to the play's origins, rehearsals took place in the old art college on Green Lane, directly opposite the flat at number 114.
Actor, composer and sound designer Ivan Stott was working on the production, and felt that it would add authenticity if it included the sound of the actual bells that could be heard from the Green Lane flat. Ivan contacted the ringers at St Peter's and was invited to join them at some of their practice sessions. As well as allowing suitable recordings to be made inside and outside the tower, including in Green Lane itself, this gave the opportunity to see the bells being rung, and to climb further up the tower to see the bells themselves. The production was staged in March 2016 before moving on to the Octagon Theatre in Bolton the following month.
The building on the right in the background is the old art college where the play was rehearsed in 2016
If you would be like to find out more about the bells that played a small part in the development of a play sometimes credited with having changed British theatre, or even learn to ring bells yourself, then have a look at the Tower History, Visit Us and Learn to Ring pages on this site. In any case, we hope that you find them more enjoyable than Jimmy Porter.