Theatre review: The Truth About Blayds

The Finborough's rediscoveries of once-popular, now forgotten works by famous authors have previously included the first time I saw J.M. Barrie's Quality Street, and now many years later another writer whose early plays were overlooked once he became better known as a children's author takes to the same stage: A. A. Milne is now remembered for creating Winnie-the-Pooh, but in 1921 his play The Truth About Blayds was getting compliments from the likes of Dorothy Parker. It's not been seen on the London stage since, but David Gilmore's production reveals it as, if not quite a lost classic, at least worth a look more than once a century. Oliver Blayds (William Gaunt) is the last of the great Victorian poets, crossing paths with Tennyson and Browning, and compared favourably to Wordsworth.

His family have gathered to celebrate his 90th birthday, and have brought along critic A.L. Royce (Rupert Wickham,) who's there to deliver a seemingly customary speech of praise on behalf of various writers from the next generation. Royce may have an ulterior motive, as the visit will reunite him with Blayds' daughter Isobel (Catherine Cusack,) who turned down his proposal 18 years earlier to care for her elderly father. In fact the whole family seems to have dedicated their lives to the grand old man: His other daughter Marion (Karen Archer) hero-worships him, and married William (Oliver Beamish,) a fan who serves as Blayds' secretary, recording his every utterance for the biography he plans to profit off after his death.

Their children Septima (Lucy Jamieson) and Oliver (George Rowlands) are a bit less enthusiastic, having spent their lives only being allowed to do whatever their grandfather thought appropriate, including what to do for a living. So they've all got a lot invested in him and his reputation, and when he dies the next day, a lot to lose when Isobel reveals the last confession her father made: He never wrote a word of it, plagiarising the prolific output of a friend who died tragically young.

The play feels its age in the opening act, quite a stuffy look at a privileged family, with Oliver seeming insufferable in his arrogance and dismissal of the advantages he's had in life - although when we find out more about the way they've been raised as offshoots of the main man rather than people in their own right even he seems borderline sympathetic. In fact it's a surprise to find Blayds' eventual appearance reveal him as quite an affable old figure, suggesting William has invented most of the old man's strict rules for his own benefit.

Despite Gaunt's presence the first act is the least interesting and the most dated-feeling, with its posh men talking about their gentlemen's club and family preparing sherry. The second livens up as the titular truth comes out, and the premise of people giving up their whole lives for a great man who turned out to be a fraud reminded me of Uncle Vanya. Instead of Russian melancholy we get very English hypocrisy and comic bickering though, as Isobel argues for exposing the long con and paying the dead man's family, while everyone else wants to protect what Blayds has meant to the public all these years (which coincidentally means they get to keep the money.)

The devoted Marion provides much of the comedy as she can't get her head round why her father would steal poetry "when he was such a good poet himself," but by the third act Milne is really getting into his theme of truth and what we can all convince ourselves of if it's in our own interest. Its drawing room style might feel twee at times, but the play's comic moments and commentary on human nature certainly haven't aged.

The Truth About Blayds by A.A. Milne is booking until the 4th of October at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Carla Joy Evans.