The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan - Softcover

Lahr, John; Tynan, Kenneth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0747558418 ISBN 13: 9780747558415

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2002

Synopsis

A brilliant and feared critic, Kenneth Tynan was a nabob of the National Theatre alongside Laurence Olivier, and he was also the daring impresario who created "Oh Calcutta". He was a notorious eccentric, a louche sophisticate: connoisseur of cuisine, wine, literature and women. Where else could you find such a judicious blend of aesthetics, theatre lore, love, marriage, sex and politics? These sizzling diaries will remind older readers of a man whose reputation as the greatest critic of the twentieth century is still unchallenged and introduce younger readers to an electrifying writer who simply could not be boring.

About this title

Review:

The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan reveals afresh the sparkling, undimmed loquacity of the man who turned theatre criticism into an art form in its own right. It is also a desperate, harrowing tale of a tormenting talent on a tragic trajectory, described by Tynan's second wife Kathleen, in her superb biography The Life of Kenneth Tynan as "electrically charged, but not earthed". Magnificently edited by John Lahr, himself a cherishable talent whose own authoritative New Yorker profiles are collected in Show and Tell, the journals cover the decade he spent in England and, latterly, California from 1971 to 1980, when he was buoyed up by commercial success of his sex revue, Oh! Calcutta, yet could not secure funding for a proposed movie project. A self-styled ergophobe, in writing with a stammerer's eloquence of his blockage, he still failed to budge it, and so occupied himself with starry socialising, political rumination, and the well-turned sentence. He describes his complicated relationship with Sir Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre, where he worked as dramaturg; he recounts inadvertently watching explicit pornography in the presence of Princess Margaret, the moment saved only by Peter Cook's ad-libbed funny-voice commentary; and he relishes the discovery that his career as a national critic had been initiated entirely due to a mistaken identity. Most affecting, though, are his appreciation of performers, always preferred by Tynan to the words themselves. Phil Silvers performing after a stroke, the vaudevillian genius of Max Wall, and the charm of Jacques Tati are all fulsomely described, and with commensurate flair.

And then there's the sex. As Tynan's health deteriorated (hereditary emphysema, exacerbated by heavy smoking), his anally-fixated sado-masochistic sexual demands, already related in his first wife Elaine Dundy's autobiography, Life Itself!, increased, as did his preoccupation with death. In truth, the diaries were his Green Room, a rehearsal space for the aphoristic nuggets with which he studded his public writing. Too intellectually uptight, perhaps, to be an artist, Tynan's tragedy was to realise this, and these gilded, chastening diaries allow us a voyeuristic, thrilling glimpse at the ever-absorptive reflection of this grand, inconsolable narcissist. --David Vincent

Review:

"A diary crammed with Class A gossip." -- Guardian, 21st September 2002

"it is the incidental details, the confessions, the asides and the opinions that make the diaries so addictive." -- Daily Telegraph 5th October 2002

'Combines sex, style, philosophy, gossip, remorse, defiance, brilliance, anxiety and dread' -- Simon Callow, Sunday Times

'I must join the club in my praise of The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan' -- Steven Berkoff, Observer

'Like the dazzling Tynan himself, quite irresistable ... treat yourself to the diaries of this dashing and stoical hedonist' -- Washington Post

'No one, they say, ever erected a statue to a critic, by Tynan has bequeathed something even larger: a legendary life' -- Michael Billington, Guardian

'One of the publishing sensations of the year' -- Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0747558418
• ISBN 13: 9780747558415
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448