Theatre review: Man and Boy

So far Indhu Rubasingham's approach to classics at the National has involved a quirky sensibility from her directors to keep things feeling fresh, but with a light enough touch not to frighten Aunt Edna. For the era's first Dorfman show we go to the ever-reliable Terence Rattigan, and a production that takes him out of the naturalistic confines that gave him an undeserved stuffy reputation for many years, but doesn't detract from the cleverness of his writing: The lesser-known Man and Boy takes place in 1930s New York, with the country in the throes of the Great Depression but a few wealthy financiers still having held on to their money. One of them is Gregor "GA" Antonescu (Ben Daniels,) a Romanian radio magnate whose luck might be about to run out: Rumour has it that a huge merger has fallen through, and his stock is plummeting.

Theatre review: In Praise of Love

1973's In Praise of Love is one of Terence Rattigan's last plays, a time when his star was in the descendant, and at times it does feel like we're going to be in for the work of a playwright whose best days are behind him. But like its characters, it's got hidden depths to take you by surprise. Sebastian Cruttwell (Dominic Rowan) is a literary critic for a Sunday paper, a vocal Marxist with undisguised contempt for anyone who doesn't share his belief in the theory, but not particularly keen on discussing how the USSR worked out in practice. After the end of WWII he met Estonian refugee Lydia (Claire Price) in Berlin's British quarter, and married her so she could come back to England, with the intention of divorcing once she got her citizenship. Decades on they're still married, and have a 20-year-old son, Joey (Joe Edgar,) who to his father's disgust campaigns for the Liberal Party.

Theatre review: The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea isn't the easiest watch in the Terence Rattigan canon but it's considered among his great works; that, and Tamsin Greig in the lead role, were reasons enough to revisit a play steeped in despair and redemption in its first return to London since the late Helen McCrory led it at the National a decade ago. The play opens with a suicide attempt: Hester (Greig) is found on the floor of her room in a dilapidated boarding house, unconscious but still alive next to the hissing gas fire. In an early example of how the play juggles the banal with the profound, her life was saved when the gas ran out because she forgot to top up the meter. Landlady Mrs Elton (Selina Cadell) and neighbours Mr & Mrs Welch (Preston Nyman and Lisa Ambalavanar) will get her help, but their meddling will also bring everyone from Hester's complicated life right back to her.

Theatre review: Summer 1954

The Browning Version is widely considered one of Terence Rattigan's masterpieces, but as a one-act play it seems to cause a lot of trouble for producers trying to pair it with something else as a double bill (Rattigan's own original choice of companion piece, Harlequinade, seems to be generally ruled out for being both too inferior and too big a shift in mood to work.) James Dacre's touring production Summer 1954 has mixed and matched it with a short from another of the playwright's double bills, Separate Tables, and so the new pairing opens at a Bournemouth hotel where most of the rooms are taken by semi-permanent residents. In Table Number Seven Siân Phillips plays the imperious Mrs Railton-Bell, who learns from the local paper that another resident, Major Pollock (Nathaniel Parker) isn't quite who he says he is.

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.

Theatre review: Love in Idleness

It's hard to review any show with Eve Best in it and know for sure how good the play itself is. I suspect Love in Idleness is a pretty mediocre play by Terence Rattigan's standards - which still puts it above most, admittedly - but Best's presence elevates it to a thing of pure joy. She plays Olivia, a poor widow whose son was evacuated during World War II and has been living in Canada for the last four years. The War is nearing its end and Michael (Edward Bluemel,) now nearly 18, is returning to London, meaning his mother has to find a way to tell him something she's been putting off: She's been living with a wealthy Canadian industrialist who's also serving as Churchill's cabinet minister for tanks. Sir John Fletcher (Anthony Head) is still married but has separated from his wife and is only holding off on a divorce to spare the Government a scandal; he's promised to marry Olivia once the war is over.

Re-review: French Without Tears

French Without Tears made number 6 in my favourite plays of last year (you can read my original review here,) so it wasn't a hard choice to make another trip to Rattigan's early comedy of young men learning French in hopes of entering "The Diplomatic." Paul Miller's production has returned to the Orange Tree for a month prior to a national tour. Only two of the original cast members have returned - Joe Eyre as the smitten Kit and David Whitworth as the quietly grumpy teacher Monsieur Maingot - and the new actors bring slightly different characterisations to their roles, but the light feel and well-executed comedy are unaffected. Florence Roberts, for example, is a somewhat crueller Diana than Genevieve Gaunt was, taking obvious pleasure in breaking the hearts of the young boys while plotting to find the most suitable husband material among them.

Theatre review: The Deep Blue Sea

Quite a major case of déjà vu for me tonight, as although Carrie Cracknell's production for the National is the first time I've seen Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, it was only two weeks ago that I saw Kenny Morgan, based on the true events that inspired it. And as it turns out, Mike Poulton's play had followed Rattigan's template very closely. The Deep Blue Sea opens with Hester Collyer (Helen McCrory) lying unconscious in front of her gas fire, having attempted suicide. Her neighbour Philip (Hubert Burton) smells the gas, and with the help of landlady Mrs Elton (Marion Bailey) gets into the flat and revives her. This scandal causes another one to be revealed: The man she lives with, and who everyone assumed was Hester's husband, is in fact her lover, and she's actually still married to someone else.

Theatre review: Harlequinade and All On Her Own

When life gives you harlequins, make...

Harlequinade has a reputation as a very minor part of the Terence Rattigan canon. It's certainly not notable for its depth, but it's no doubt also suffered from often being paired with one of the playwright's masterpieces, The Browning Version, for no other reason than their both being one-acters. Playing in rep with The Winter's Tale in the SirKenBranCo season, it's paired with a different Rattigan piece, but it's no less of an unusual combination: The evening opens with Zoë Wanamaker in the monologue All On Her Own as widow Rosemary, returning from a date to an empty house. Sitting in the room where her husband died of an overdose, she has a conversation with him about whether it truly was an accident as the coroner ruled, or a suicide; she replies to herself on his behalf, expressing thoughts she's been afraid to say out loud before.

Theatre review: French Without Tears

The Rattigan revival remains in such full swing it seems insane he vanished from the stage for so long. And given how well plays like French Without Tears hold up, it feels downright criminal. The playwright has a knack for understated heartbreak but while there's glimpses of that here, we're mainly in full-on, mischievous comic mode. The setting is the rural French home of Professor Maingot (David Whitworth,) where young Englishmen - usually those hoping to become diplomats - can spend a few months learning the language from him and his daughter. Kenneth (Patrick McNamee,) nicknamed Babe as he's the youngest, has brought along his sister, and she's caused a stir among the other students. As the story begins she's swearing love to Kit (Joe Eyre,) but when Bill (William Belchambers,) a Navy Commander joins their class, he catches her eye too.

Theatre review: First Episode

The ongoing Terence Rattigan revival collides with the trend for classic rediscoveries as Tom Littler revives Rattigan's professional playwrighting debut, First Episode. A modest West End hit in 1934, he shares the writing credit with his university friend Philip Heimann, although current opinion seems to be that this is a courtesy gesture, as the play is partly based on their friendship, and Heimann contributed to the plotting; the final draft is thought to be almost entirely Rattigan's though. Another inspiration is an unlikely but true story of an Oxford University amateur dramatics production that somehow convinced John Gielgud to direct Romeo and Juliet, and bring along Peggy Ashcroft to be the leading lady. Ashcroft here becomes Margot (Caroline Langrishe,) a film and theatre star persuaded to play Cleopatra opposite undergraduate Tony (Gavin Fowler) as her Antony. Finding her approachable in rehearsals, Tony invites Margot to a party at the flat he shares with three other students.

Theatre review: Variation on a Theme

The latter years of Terence Rattigan's life saw a decline in his popularity as the Kitchen Sink playwrights knocked him out of favour, and Variation on a Theme had a particularly unfortunate part to play in his story: It was the play Shelagh Delaney saw, and was so unimpressed by it propelled her to try and do better herself. Rattigan would eventually, posthumously, reclaim his place on British stages, with his better-known plays getting plenty of major revivals in recent years, but it takes the Finborough to unearth Variation on a Theme again half a century after it was last seen. And with the play Delaney wrote in response, A Taste of Honey, enjoying a major revival at the National right now, what better time to reevaluate whether Rattigan's offering deserves its ignominious place in history.

Theatre review: The Winslow Boy

Terence Rattigan's centenary celebrations in 2011 included a number of revivals of his plays, resulting in a renewed interest in his work, which continues to make regular returns to the stage a couple of years after the anniversary. It's no wonder; the last decade's reevaluation of his work has revealed one of the great playwrights of the 20th century, unfairly allowed to slide into obscurity after the Angry Young Men put him out of fashion in the 1960s. I've really enjoyed the work of his I've seen so far so was really looking forward to the latest revival, and one of his most famous works: After joining in the birthday party with Cause Célèbre two years ago, the Old Vic takes on The Winslow Boy, Lindsay Posner directing a cast led by Henry Goodman as the father taking on the government in a fight to clear his son's name.

Theatre review: South Downs and The Browning Version

Last year's Chichester season continues to become this year's West End season, as for the 2011 Terence Rattigan centenary they commissioned David Hare to write a companion piece to perhaps Rattigan's best-loved work, The Browning Version. Both plays are set in public schools, which Tom Scutt's set translates into polished wooden floors that fade into a dusty distance: Echoing perhaps the obscurity the characters think the institutions will fall into, as South Downs is set in the 1960s, when there was a genuine belief that public schools might be abolished. Hare's play, directed by Jeremy Herrin, plays first in the double bill, and shows us life from the point of view of the students. In particular one student, John Blakemore (Alex Lawther,) who isn't particularly popular at his High Church of England school. When he defends his best friend in class, his status as an outsider is only confirmed but Blakemore's search for answers continues, however much it aggravates his classmates.