John Osborne

[Heilpern] writes with infectious verve, championing the plays against carpers and cavillers, and showing how close they were to their creator's raw experience. Above all he celebrates Osborne's cross-grained vitality. His book brings a flesh-and-blood human being back from the shades, shouting, like Jimmy Porter 'Hallelujah! I'm alive!'

John Carey, Sunday Times

Fascinating...exhaustive perusal of the playwright's formative years

Beryl Bainbridge

An enjoyable, exhaustive, well-researched and highly readable biography

Michael Arditti, Independent

His biography is surely a model of its kind: tightly written, vivid, witty, knowledgeable and with a seamless, and often moving, interweaving of the past and present

Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

Heilpern has produced a riveting biography - Heilpern orchestrates his complex narrative with flair and contrives to invoke affection in the face of bad behaviour....judicious and dependable

Valerie Grove, The Times

A sensationally enjoyable piece of work

Duncan Fallowell, Daily Telegraph

He creates an unforgettable portrait

Joyce McMillan, Scotsman

Engrossing...entertaining and deeply affecting, a remembrance of a time when theatre in Britain actually mattered

Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald

Heilpern is sharp, gossipy and good fun, and he honours the best of Osborne without disguising the worst

Blake Morrison, Guardian

A rip-roaring account of early struggles, huge triumphs, fraught marriages, friends and lovers abused, money wasted and, finally, health and talent evaporated

Jane Edwardes, Time Out

Both revelatory and disturbing. It paints a portrait of an English writer who is as complex and tormented as Evelyn Waugh

William Boyd, Guardian

Osborne has found his ideal biographer

John Banville