A Taste of Honey

Taste of Honey - Explore the likely similarities and differences between

the audience reactions of 1958 and 2003.

A Taste of Honey

Explore the likely similarities and differences between the audience

reactions of 1958 and 2003.

What was particularly shocking for an audience in 1958?

How might an audience in 2003 react to the play?

What are the dramatic qualities?

How were theatrical conventions challenged when this play was first

performed?

Joan Littlewood first accepted Shelagh Delaney’s “A Taste of Honey” in

1958 for production by the Theatre Workshop Company. At this time,

Britain was finally beginning to emerge from the shortages and

restrictions on life caused by World War Two.

The 1950’s were a big time of change, and saw the birth of the

“teenager”, a culture that had previously not been recognised. People

were beginning to refuse to accept things the way they were, and films

such as, “A Rebel Without a Cause” staring James Dean, showed new

rebellious characters, in a way that was innovative and scandalous.

“A Taste of Honey” was part of this shocking new rebellion and

appealed especially to this new strata in society. It belonged to a

period in drama known as the “angry” theatre, started by John

Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger”.

Until this time, the majority of plays had been set in London, and

were generally about the upper class in society. Delaney had decided

to defy this convention, and set her play in Manchester. She said,

'North County people are shown as gormless, whereas in actual fact

they are very alive and cynical'

Furthermore, her play is certainly not about the upper class in

society, both of these factors would have been very surprising for

audiences in 1958.

The opening scene shows us immediately into an unpleasant flat. Helen

soon comments that, “Everything in it is falling apart” and that the

view out of the window is of the “gasworks”. This is not the sort of

setting that one would expect, for a mother and daughter to be moving

into, in 1958, or in 2003. In 1958 a mother and daughter living

together, without a father was very rare. Single parents were only a

tiny majority of the population. We soon find out that Jo has never

really had a father. He is a person that Helen seems keen to forget

about. In 1958 this would have been outrageous, but it is not so

surprising now. The audience at the time would have undoubtedly have

been shocked.

Helen isn’t portrayed to be a good mother throughout the play.

Several references are made to her drinking habits. These are made by