Rereading: Howard Brenton on The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
On the centenary of the death of Robert Tressell, Howard Brenton celebrates the author's most famous work, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists " a working-class Vanity Fair " which he adapted into a playAround the year 1905, in a seaside town on the south coast of England, a group of painters and decorators are about to have dinner " what we Guardian readers call lunch. The men are renovating a big, ramshackle Victo…