Theatre review: While the Sun Shines

I sometimes wonder, if anyone's still alive and staging theatre in 100 years' time, which plays by current writers will be the ones they're remembered for, and whether their biggest hits in their lifetime are forgotten while their flops get regarded as classics? Will Monster Raving Loony be thought of as James Graham's masterpiece, while Ink is an obscurity, a slightly baffled tone to the Wikipedia footnote about all the awards it won? It's been the fate of so many playwrights over the centuries* that you can't help but wonder, and the latest piece of evidence comes from Terence Rattigan: The writer sometimes described as an English Chekhov, whose Browning Version and Winslow Boy among others are considered 20th century masterpieces, had his biggest-ever commercial hit with an amiable but decidedly slight, bed-hopping wartime comedy. The latest in the occasional series of Rattigan and Shaw rediscoveries that seem to be the Orange Tree's most reliable rainmakers, While the Sun Shines hasn't been staged in London for decades, and while Paul Miller's production packs in the laughs it's unlikely to lead to any major reevaluation of the play itself.

In a theatrical week that has, for me, been packed with proudly LGBTQ+ theatre, this is back to a gay playwright who was most definitely in the closet, but Rattigan still manages to regularly get three young men into bed with each other (offstage.)

This is because it's London during the Blitz, and servicemen are happy to share their bed with a fellow soldier down on his luck; like US airman Joe Mulvaney (Julian Moore-Cook,) who'd currently be collapsed drunk in the street outside a night club if he hadn't made a new friend in Bobby (Philip Labey,) better known as the Earl of Harpenden when he's not in the Navy. Bobby is about to get married, so offers to let Mulvaney stay in his flat while he's on honeymoon, and even tells him he'll send good-time girl Mable round to keep him company. A misunderstanding sees Joe mistake Bobby's fiancée Elisabeth (Sabrina Bartlett) for Mable, and when he turns on the charm Elisabeth questions whether she's marrying the right man.

To complete his theme of the Allied forces (as well as one representative each from the Army, Air Force and Navy) in microcosm Rattigan also throws in French soldier Colbert (Jordan Mifsúd,) who fell for Elisabeth when they chatted on a train, and confuses things further when he thinks he's the one she's considering leaving Bobby for; there's also her father the Duke (Michael Lumsden,) who's determined the marriage should go ahead so the Earl's millions can fund his gambling habit.

Miller keeps the three-act structure with two intervals, and by the first of these things do feel a bit dry, but with the setup done things improve a lot in Act II. Mifsúd's stroppy French socialist may be a cliché but he steals every scene he's in, as does Dorothea Myer-Bennett's criminally underused Mable: Her constantly being packed off to the kitchen may be a running joke, but it does deprive the stage of someone who lifts the action every time she's on it.

Happily this is a generally strong cast so things don't flag, although the final act isn't helped by the story being dragged towards an unsatisfying happy ending that won't have done much to dispel Rattigan's reputation as a reactionary. It would be unfair to compare While the Sun Shines to the playwright's most celebrated dramas, but for me it also comes up short compared to the more similar in style French Without Tears. I can see how the play's escapism, which its title even references, was welcome during the wartime years - and the audience with their ration books must have been gratified to see even a wealthy Earl treat a fresh egg as a precious luxury. But while it's worth seeing, I can't see it escaping its status as Wikipedia footnote any time soon.

While the Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan is booking until the 27th of July at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes including two intervals.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.

*including Shakespeare, if the lack of any evidence of As You Like It ever finding an audience is any indicator