KITCHEN SINK DRAMA
ARNOLD WESKER
John Randall Bratby

British painter and writer. Bratby was a versatile
artist: he painted portraits, still lifes, figure
compositions, landscapes, and flower pieces, and
also designed film sets. He is probably best known
for the scenes of drab domestic life he painted in the
1950s, when he was a member of the Kitchen Sink
School. Later his work became lighter and more
exuberant. His talent for self-promotion helped to
make him one of the best-known British artists of his
generation. Among his publications are the novel
Breakdown (1960) and a book on Stanley Spencer
(1970).

His paintings reflected everyday domestic
surroundings. Bratby believed that his
paintings were rooted in general fifties
attitudes and outlooks, being “introvert, grim,
khaki in colour, often opposed to prettiness,
and dedicated to portraying a stark, raw, ugly
reality'.
KITCHEN SINK DRAMA
The term “Kitchen sink drama” is used to
describe a new kind of drama that was
introduced into British stage with Osborne’s
Look Back in Anger (1956).
 This kind of drama used the working class
setting with the working class characters.
 It was usually set in a bed-sit or flat and focus
on domestic issues.

Kitchen Sink dramatists tried to draw a picture
of the working class life.
 Arnold Wesker expressed his dissatisfaction
with the society, taking a social point of view.
This earned him being called ‘Angry Young
Men.’
 Just like John Osborne, Wesker took a realistic
approach in his plays.
 Wesker used emphatic endings, realistically
detailed setting, and realistic dialogues and
rounded characters.

Unlike the avant garde theatre and the theatre
of absurd of Samuel Beckett, it had a social
message and ideological stance , which was
largely leftist.
 Kitchen Sink Drama depicted the everyday
lives of ordinary people who struggle against
the degredation of powerlessness, the loss of
community or the deadening influence of the
suburbia.
 John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Shelagh
Delaney, John Arden were a part of this
movement but never referred to themselves
as ‘Kitchen Sink Dramatists.’


Arnold Wesker himself said: “Kitchen Sink
Drama is a lazy description of a group that
didn’t exist.I certainly was not a conscious
party to a countermovement to the drawingroom theatre. We were all so diverse”
ARNOLD WESKER
Much of his works take their origin from his
life. He has a working class background.
 He was born in Stepney, London, on 24 May
1932. He is the son of Jewish emigré parents.
His father was a tailor and from Ukraine and
his mother Hungarian.
 Before he became a playwright, he worked as
carpenter,plumber, bookshop assistant and a
cook.


Wesker founded the Roundhouse’s first
theatre, called Centre 42 in 1964.

His early works, The Kitchen and Roots were
staged by the Royal Court Theatre.