The Entertainer

The Entertainer, play in 13 parts by John Osborne, produced in 1957 and published in 1959. The playwright used a seedy third-rate English music-hall comedian and the deteriorating Empire Music Hall as metaphors for Great Britain’s decline as a world power. In brief bursts of topical, frequently disjointed Brechtian commentary, The Entertainer also decries the rise of pop culture and the chic espousal of radical political views.