Terence Rattigan’s 1960 drama about T.E.
Lawrence is, through no fault of its own, a betwixt-and-between affair.
It sets out to treat its subject with greater complexity than the
“Lawrence of Arabia” legend (although David Lean had not yet made the
biopic that would prove the zenith of that view), yet a combination of
limited further information at the time and Rattigan’s reticence about
homosexuality (his own as well as his subject’s) meant that the play
could only go so far. We see Lawrence’s detachment, not least in that
it drove him to seek anonymity by enlisting in the RAF as Aircraftman
T.E. Ross, with scenes on the air base in 1922 framing the main account
of his role in the Arab Revolt during World War I. We see the
arrogance, the spiritual turmoil and especially the disillusionment and
disgust after his capture by the Turks in 1917 when he was beaten and
raped (again, the sexual dimension can barely be suggested).
Joseph Fiennes, under Adrian Noble’s direction, gives the best stage
performance I have seen from him, constantly (and especially
post-capture) looking as if he might at any moment be deserted by the
last shreds of the self-discipline which is all that is holding him
together as he moves amongst others. The 18-strong all-male cast
(another odd note to contemporary eyes) also includes Peter Polycarpou
as the sheikh with whom alliance proved crucial, Michael Feast as the
Turkish military governor, John Hopkins as the fellow RAF recruit who
tries to blackmail Ross about his true identity, and in particular Paul
Freeman as General Allenby, with whom Lawrence engages in bouts of
mutually antagonistic prickliness.
Yet ultimately, the play can do no more than modulate the classic
portrait of an unalloyed hero into the more contemporary, but still now
somewhat outdated, “flawed hero with some added depth” version. Thus
its revival in 2016 inevitably suggests that the more fervid end of
Islam would not today be nurturing its dreams of a single caliphate
were it not for the efforts of a public-school-educated, masochistic
homosexual Englishman a century ago. As such, it may have been a little
tactless to schedule this run during Ramadan.
Written for the Financial
Times.