Peter Whitebrook is a journalist who has written and broadcast widely on the theatre. For many years he was the drama critic for The Scotsman. He won a Fringe First award for his co-adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. He has written and presented several arts documentaries for BBC Radio Scotland, Radio 4 and the World Service. He has frequently chaired events at the Edinburgh Book Festival and now does so at the Gothenburg Book Fair. He has published an acclaimed biography of theatre critic William Archer, who was the first to translate Ibsen into English, and was a consultant and contributor to a major Channel 4 documentary on John Osborne. John Osborne was born in London in 1929. He worked as a journalist for a number of trade magazines before becoming an Assistant Stage Manager and actor with several repertory companies.

Look Back in Anger (1956) has come to stand as a key text for modern British Drama, and prompted other successes with The Entertainer and Epitaph for George Dillon. He was the first of many writers to be 'discovered' by the Royal Court Theater, and Look Back in Anger was the first of the Royal Court's plays to be internationally recognized. Osborne adapted Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer for film. He also wrote an Oscar winning screenplay adaptation of Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones.