The Rattigan revival continues. Some of
the plays of Sir Terence Rattigan given productions in the past year or
two are among his best known (at the moment,
The Deep Blue Sea is playing at the
National Theatre and
French Without
Tears at the Orange Tree), others less so. In some instances the
case for staging is obvious, in others... well.
While The Sun Shines is one of the
dot-dot-dot-well ones.
It dates from 1943, and offers a portrait of wartime London as a hotbed
of casual and often international sexual liaisons, such that
protagonist Bobby’s fiancée Elizabeth is propositioned within the space
of a few minutes by lieutenants from the U.S. Army Air Corps and the
Free French forces. But it’s not a terribly substantial portrait, since
this is a) a farce, and b) sclerotically class-bound, much more than it
means to be.
Even more than the cosmopolitan sexuality, this is a London where the
entire war effort seems to be conducted by members of the belted
aristocracy in their free moments, as a kind of desultory pastime.
Bobby is only an ordinary seaman but is the Earl of Harpenden,
Elizabeth a WRAF corporal but the daughter of a duke (who at least has
the decency to be a general). Is this English self-parody? No: the
American’s ignorance is shown by his referring to the location of
Bobby’s “chambers” as
the
Albany (what a gaffe!), and the inevitable tart with a heart is given
the thudding cartoon-prole name Mabel Crum and ultimately shows the
sense not to rise above her station by marrying Bobby on the rebound.
Christopher Luscombe’s production is smooth, eschewing the rising
intensity required even in the kind of farce, like this, that depends
more on characters and their responses than on events; I suspect Rob
Heaps as Bobby could have his ear bitten off and react with no more
than a muttered “Oh, really!” Luscombe also adds a few moments of
choreographed responses among several actors which suggest that he
thinks the material either needs or at least supports such faffing
around. World War Two may have changed the world irrevocably, but the
impression here is that it was won on the playing fields of...
actually, of Harrow.
Written for the Financial
Times.