(seen at the afternoon performance on 29th January 2025)
It is always the case that a new generation discards without thinking the work of the one before. “They don’t speak the same,” therefore they do not speak to us.
Rattigan, Coward and their contemporaries were thrown over in the 1950s in favour of Wesker, Osbourne and others. “Kitchen Sink” seemed more real and “relevant” to the younger generation.
This exquisite pairing of Rattigan classics proves not only the timelessness of his writing, but also just how narrow-minded that particular theatrical revolution turned out to be. Without even stretching the imagination, it is easy to see Rattigan reflects just as accurately and with realism authentic voices.
Originally a “double bill” called “Separate Tables,” the first play in this pairing is an amalgam of 1954 works “Table Number Seven” and “Table by the Window.” A residential seaside hotel in Bournemouth, filled with polite people ‘keeping up appearances’ as the British tend to do.
Mrs Railton-Bell (Sian Phillips) is scandalised that fellow resident Major Pollock (Nathaniel Parker) has been convicted of importuning men. Homosexuality being illegal in the UK at the time, she attempts to turn all other residents against him, and Pollock out of his home.
Director James Dacre and designer Mike Britton keep the piece firmly in period. A fly-blown painted revolving set provides a dining room and residential lounge, a hallway and doors to a garden. Genteel yet decrepit, rather like the inhabitants in style and movement.
Matching them, Charles Balfour keeps the lighting grey, Valgeir Sigurdsson the music sombre, and Bella Kear the sound crisp as the accents.
It is the performances which elevate the production to great heights. Phillips is redoubtable, contrasting with a beautifully transforming performance from Alexandra Dowling as her mouse-turns-lion daughter Sybil.
Parker travels in the opposite direction. Bluffing his way through life until that bluff is called. His heartbreaking final scene at the dining room table takes all his skill to anchor as attitudes pivot around him.
Lolita Chakrabarti as Miss Cooper adds another dimension to this revival. An Indian actor in the role of hotel manager, Chakrabarti makes us feel even more deeply the issue of being “other” and the humanity of understanding.
Notes too for excellent Jeremy Neumark Jones as Charles Stratton, with wife Jean (Angela Jones). Another contrast in attitudes, Jones’s final fury at her husband’s liberal attitude an unforgettable expression.
Simon Coates is a useful Mr Fowler, exposing early the lack of Pollack’s credibility. Richenda Carey is a straight-talking Miss Meacham, Pamela Miles every inch Lady Matheson.
Several of the cast stay with us in the second half of the evening, the better-known school-set production “The Browning Version.”
Nathaniel Parker’s Andrew Crocker-Harris is a Lower Fifth year school master, moving on to a less taxing job for health reasons. On his penultimate day he finishes tutoring John Taplow (Bertie Hawes) and makes plans for a final speech before the school the following afternoon.
“The Croc’s” wife, Millie (Lolita Chakrabarti) is in a loveless fling with young teacher Frank Hunter (Jeremy Neumark Jones), while headmaster Dr Frobisher (Simon Coates) is the bearer of bad news about his departing employee’s pension, even after 18 years of service.
Mike Britton’s versatile set transforms into exactly what we think a 1950’s minor public schoolmaster’s live-in accommodation looks like. The cast live up to the environment, all hard wood with soft padding a luxury.
The speaking is plain, and the reason for this pairing of plays becomes apparent as the secrets and faces we present to the world are exposed as shams. Weak, transparent and ripe for exposure or simply misconceived.
Young Taplow’s gift of “The Browning Version” translation of “Agamemnon” is a symbol of interpretation. How accuracy of expression and reasons for motivation can be married in many ways to bring about very different conclusions.
The wisest and most experienced heads know how to sift these in the search for validity, yet Parker and Chakrabarti still provide – with expert timing – a truly shocking conclusion.
Two strong plays in excellent form, bearing ideas as fresh today as when they were first written.
5 stars.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan. Used by kind permission of Richmond Theatre press office.