THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN
S1R,—When I agreed to give an interview to the Spectator, it did not occur to me that your repre- sentative would be employing the techniques of the lurid scandal-sheets more widely known in the States. I suppose that by ,this time I should have known better than to invite a journalist into my home. Or pethaps the piece you printed about myself last week was a pastiche written by Mr. Randolph Churchill? Anyway, it is obviously a mistake to leave a news- paper man alone in one's room for a few minutes, or even to offer him tea—especially with evaporated milk. If your interviewer—who, apparently, does not - Write under his own name—had looked more care- fully, he would have noticed my bank statement on the bOokshelves and my personal notebook on the desk. (I 'don't usually lock these things away when I have visitors.) Perhaps he overlooked these things in his tour of the room orI was not out long enough. If any other journalist wishes to write a piece about myself, I suggest he should contact Mr. 'Hancock,' who will gladly give him my telephone number which for some reason he has omitted from his article. If he hasn't noticed it already, there is a comfortable flat roof opposite, my house and I do not draw the curtains until quite late.
One more point : like, most journalists, Mr. 'Hancock' has a poor ear for dialogue and any of my friends will look in vain for my own personal idiom in the emasculated language used in this
article.—Yours faithfully, JOHN OSBORNE
The English Stage Company Ltd., Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, SW I
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