Angry young man

This expression has come to describe anyone who goes against the establishment or the accepted status quo. The first use of the phrase is attributed to Leslie Paul who used it as the title of a book, Angry Young Man, published in 1951. Despite this, it is most often associated with John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger even though the expression itself is not used anywhere in the play. More than one drama critic, however, used it to describe the lead character, Jimmy Porter, a typical angry young man. Look Back in Anger was made into a movie by Tony Richardson in 1959, starring Richard Burton and Claire Bloom.