Kenneth Tynan

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Kenneth Peacock Tynan (April 2, 1927 - July 26, 1980), was an influential and often controversial British theatre critic and author.

He was born in Birmingham to Peter Tynan and Letitia Rose Tynan. As a child, he stammered but possessed early on a high degree of articulate intelligence. By the age of six, he was already keeping a diary. At King Edward's School, Birmingham, he had already taken up his lifelong smoking habit. He was a brilliant student of whom one of his masters said, "He was the only boy I could never teach anything." Always clothed foppishly in that all-boy public school, he played the lead as Doctor Parpalaid in an English translation of Jules Romains' farce Knock.

Tynan was 12 when World War II broke out. By the time the war ended, he had earned a scholarship to Oxford. Well before then he had adopted a fairly colourful set of views (and wardrobe items). During grammar school debates he advocated repealing laws against homosexuality and abortion. He also gave a speech on the pleasures of masturbation, entitled "This House Thinks The Present Generation Has Lost The Ability To Entertain Itself." At Oxford he lived flamboyantly but was already beginning to suffer from the effects of his heavy smoking. He retained a life-long admiration for his tutor at Oxford, C.S. Lewis, in spite of their marked differences in outlook.

In 1948, upon the death of Tynan's father, Tynan was startled to discover some facts about the former's true identity: he was Sir Peter Peacock, who had once been mayor of Warrington and had been successfully leading a double life for more than 20 years. Sir Peter's body was returned to Warrington for burial. Thereafter it would be long before Tynan was able to trust anyone again.

Three years later, on January 25, 1951, he married the author Elaine Dundy (official site) after a three-month romance. In the following year they had a daughter, named Tracy after Spencer Tracy, and asked Katharine Hepburn to be godmother, which she accepted. (Tracy is currently a costumer designer for the film industry; see her IMDB entry.)

Tynan's career took off in 1952 when he was hired as a theatre critic for the London Evening Standard. Two years later he left for The Observer, and it was there that he rose to prominence. The timing for a witty, eloquent theatre critic was perfect and the 1955-1956 theatre season in Britain was almost revolutionary. Plays including John Osborne's Look Back in Anger and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot premiered that year. Tynan espoused a new theatrical realism, best exemplified in the works of the Angry Young Men.

His marriage had become increasingly difficult in spite of his success (and Elaine's: she had published her first novel in 1958). Both had extramarital affairs (though his were much more blatant than hers) and he had developed a dependence on alcohol. His sexual tastes now included sadomasochism, which strained the marriage as well.

Francis Bacon, a painter renowned for his grotesque (and often gory) works, once smiled warmly at Tracy and declared her to be "as pretty as a picture." This was one of the few times Kenneth Tynan was ever shocked into silence.

In 1963 Laurence Olivier became the British Royal National Theatre's first artistic director and started looking for a literary adviser. Tynan recommended himself for the role. Olivier, possibly fearing Tynan's critical savagery in the face of disappointment, accepted, and Tynan left The Observer to become the National Theatre's full-time literary manager. Tynan's marriage ended in divorce the following year.

On 13 November 1965, during a live TV debate, broadcast as part of the BBC's satirical show BBC3, Tynan, commenting on the subject of censorship, said "I doubt if there are any rational people to whom the word 'fuck' would be particularly diabolical, revolting or totally forbidden." This was the first time the word "fuck" had been spoken on British television. In response to public outcry, the BBC was forced to issue a formal apology. The House of Commons signed four separate censuring motions signed by 133 Labour Party and Tory backbenchers. Mary Whitehouse, a frequent critic of the BBC over issues of "morals and decency," wrote a letter to the Queen, suggesting that Tynan should be reprimanded by having "his bottom spanked." The irony of Whitehouse's comment has been noted, given the later revelations of Tynan's fetish for flagellation [1]. The episode further encouraged Whitehouse in her campaign against the BBC; it also cut short Tynan's television career. Comedian Billy Connolly would later commemorate this event in his song "A Four-Letter Word."

By 1967 his career had suffered further. His left-wing tendencies, his lifestyle, and his failing health made him something of a poster boy for Sixties decadence in London. In that same year he married, with Marlene Dietrich as a witness, Kathleen Halton, a Canadian journalist, daughter of famed wartime CBC correspondent Matthew Halton and sister of contemporary CBC journalist David Halton. She gave up her career to support him politically and socially. Her writing fell by the wayside during these years as the Tynan home became something of a focus for left-wing personalities in London.

Tynan was fiercely against censorship and was determined to break taboos that he considered arbitrary. Among his efforts was the erotic revue he wrote (in collaboration with such notables as Samuel Beckett, John Lennon, and Edna O'Brien) called Oh! Calcutta!, which debuted in 1969. He co-wrote with Roman Polanski the script of an unusually grim and violent screen adaptation of Macbeth in 1971. In that same year he returned to his childhood habit of keeping a journal, detailing his last few months at the Royal National Theatre, which he left in 1972.

Virtually a pariah from the mainstream at this point, Tynan lingered in London for another four years and moved with his family to California in 1976. His diaries, which he continued until the end of his life, are a mixture of self-examination and gossip; frequently hilarious and passionate, filled with wisdom and occasional folly, they reflect a growing sense of disappointment. He also wrote several more books.

In his last years he wrote articles, most notably for The New Yorker. His second marriage began falling apart. As Kathleen found success as a screenwriter and author (see her IMDB entry), they had an uneasy relationship for the last few years. This marriage produced two children: Matthew, named for Kathleen's father, and Roxana.

Tynan died in Santa Monica, California, of pulmonary emphysema. He was buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

Tynan's influence on the theatre scene (particularly in London) was great, though his criticisms were often controversial and stinging. Some considered his influence mildly frightening; many actors were scared of incurring his wrath. Nevertheless, he deserves part of the credit for the theatrical revolution of the mid-Fifties and the continued popularity of such playwrights as Beckett.

[edit] Selected quotes of Kenneth Tynan

"Citizen Coon" (Tynan's description of Orson Welles' performance as Othello).

"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car."

"The greatest films are those which show how society shapes man. The greatest plays are those which show how man shapes society."

[Upon moving to a house in California well above his means] "What have I done — more ominously, what am I going to have to do to deserve all this?"

[About Vivien Leigh's performance in Titus Andronicus] "She receives the news that she is about to be ravished on her husband's corpse with little more than the mild annoyance of one who would have preferred foam rubber."

"What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober."

"Western man, especially the Western critic, still finds it very hard to go into print and say: 'I recommend you to go and see this because it gave me an erection.'"

[edit] Selected bibliography and other works

Obituary in The Guardian.

"When Kenneth met Lulu," The Guardian, "Saturday Review," p. 4 (November 21, 1998). Discusses the story (told by Kathleen Tynan) of Kenneth Tynan's obsession with Louise Brooks. Kathleen produced a screenplay, the rights to which were bought by Martin Scorsese in 1998.

Tynan's biography on the National Theatre's website.

The Girl With the Black Helmet-Tynan's article from a 1979 issue of the New Yorker about silent film star Louise Brooks

Some Plays -- a List Compiled for The National Theatre. Kenneth Tynan. Referred to in the National Theatre biography mentioned above, his list is available from the National Theatre website as a Microsoft Word 97 document. Google also has a cached version of the text.

Kenneth Tynan: Letters. Kathleen Tynan [ed]. ISBN 0-517-39926-1.

Tynan Right and Left: Plays, Films, People, Places and Events. Kenneth Tynan. 1967. ISBN 0-689-10271-2.

The History of the National Theatre. John Elsom and Nicholas Tomalin. 1978. ISBN 0-224-01340-8.

Show People: Profiles in Entertainment. Kenneth Tynan. 1980. ISBN 0-671-25012-4.

The Life of Kenneth Tynan. Kathleen Tynan. 1987. ISBN 0-688-05080-8, ISBN 0-688-08906-2, ISBN 0-413-18590-7.

Profiles. Kenneth Tynan. Edited by Kathleen Tynan and Ernie Eban. 1990. Various editions: ISBN 0-06-039123-5.

Man They Loved to Hate. William Triplett. 1995. A biography of Kenneth Tynan. ISBN 0-340-59240-0.

1956 and All That: The Making of Modern British Drama. Dan Rebellato. 1999. ISBN 0-415-18939-X.

Life Itself!. Elaine Dundy. 2001. Contains a definitive autobiographical account of Tynan's first marriage as written by his first wife. ISBN 1-86049-513-3.