Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 in South Kensington, London, England, of Irish Protestant extraction. He had an elder brother, Brian. They were the grandsons of Sir William Henry Rattigan, a notable Indian-based jurist, and later a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament for North East Lanarkshire. His father was Frank Rattigan CMG, a diplomat whose exploits included an affair with Princess Elisabeth of Romania (future consort of King George II of Greece).
Success as a playwright came early, with the comedy French Without Tears in 1936, set in a crammer. He had got inspiration from a 1933 visit to a village called Marxzell in the Black Forest, where young English gentlemen went to learn German, and where his time briefly overlapped with his Harrow classmate Jock Colville. Rattigan's determination to write a more serious play produced After the Dance (1939), a satirical social drama about the "bright young things" and their failure to politically engage. The outbreak of the Second World War scuppered any chances of a long run. Shortly before the war, Rattigan had written (together with Anthony Maurice) a satire about Nazi Germany, Follow My Leader; the Prime Minister, Lord Chamberlain, refused to license it on grounds of offence to a foreign country (Hitler's Germany), but it was performed from January 1940.
During the war, Rattigan served in the Royal Air Force as a tail gunner; his experiences helped inspire Flare Path and he was released from the service to help rewrite it as a film screenplay (which eventually appeared as The Way to the Stars in 1945). After the war, Rattigan alternated between comedies and dramas, establishing himself as a major playwright: the most famous of which were The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952), and Separate Tables (1954).
For an insight into Terence Rattigan, listen to file 14 of this collection.
Many thanks to David W, Peter P, Hamish and David H for contributions to this page.
01. French Without Tears. The comic, sometimes painful, fallings-out of five young male English students at a residential language cramming establishment in France.
02. Flare Path. Written in 1941 and first staged in 1942. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star.The title of the play refers to the flares that were used to light runways to allow planes to take off and land but the flare paths were also used by the Germans to target the RAF planes. In writing the play, Terence Rattigan drew on his experiences as a tail gunner in the RAF Coastal Command.
Two versions available for Flare Path:
1965 with Basil Jones, Betty Baskcomb, Jane Wenham and Anthony Hall.
2011 with Monica Dolan, Una Stubbs, Rupert Penry Jones, Justin Salinger and David Hartley.
03. While the Sun Shines. On the eve of his marriage, the Earl of Harpenden puts up a drunken American Lieutenant for the night. The Earl decides to fix the American up with a former girlfriend but the Earl's fiancee turns up instead. A French officer, the fiancee's spendthrift father, and the amorous ex-girlfriend are part of the frothy mix.
First staged in 1943 at the Globe Theatre London.
04. The Winslow Boy. Based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osbourne. Ronnie Winslow, a thirteen-year-old cadet at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, is accused of the theft of a five-shilling postal order. An internal enquiry, conducted without notice to his family and without benefit of representation, finds him guilty, and his father, Arthur Winslow, is "requested to withdraw" his son from the college (the formula of the day for expulsion). Winslow believes Ronnie's claim of innocence and, with the help of his suffragette daughter Catherine and his friend and family solicitor Desmond Curry, launches a concerted effort to clear Ronnie's name. This is no small matter, as under British law, Admiralty decisions are official acts of the government, which cannot be sued without its consent—traditionally expressed by the Attorney General responding to a petition of right with the formula "Let right be done".
05. The Browning Version. Set in an English public school on the last day of the summer term, buried emotions re-surface when unpopular classics master Andrew Crocker Harris is given a present on his final day. A once-brilliant classicist, now known by boys and staff alike as 'The Crock', he is retiring due to ill health. When a pupil, Taplow, presents him with an unexpected gift (a copy of Browning's translation of the Agamemnon) The Crock, also known as the Himmler of the Lower Fifth, is overwhelmed. His dammed-up misery, disappointment and humiliation are released and the way is paved for a series of surprising revelations and decisions.
A brand-new production directed by Martin Jarvis with an outstanding cast. Acknowledged as Rattigan's enduring masterpiece, 'The Browning Version' shows the writer's unrivalled ability to characterise repressed emotion, and provides a devastating portrait of a dead marriage. One of the finest, most moving and beautifully crafted plays of the 20th century.
The Rattigan Version (Martin Jarvis director of the 2011 production). In the second part of the programme Martin Jarvis, director of 'The Browning Version', reveals some of the play's background and describes Rattigan's hopes, fears and ambitions for its ongoing success.
Two versions are available for the Browning Version:
1986 with Nigel Stock, Barbara Jefford, David MacAllister and Stephen Garlick.
2011 with Michael York, Joanne Whalley, Ioan Gruffudd and Ian Ogilvy.
06. Adventure Story. Adventure Story tells the story of Alexander the Great and his conquests. The play focuses on the transformation of Alexander after his conquest of Persia from a military adventurist to an uncompromising despot with grand vision of a world empire which estranges him from his erstwhile friends. Driven by a deep-felt insecurity, he has to kill people close to him including even the father figure Cleitus. He tries to justify his actions in the name of his dreams of the world empire, but is haunted by loneliness in the end.
07. The Deep Blue Sea. Terence Rattigan's play was controversial in the Fifties and still retains a strong emotional punch today. In this production, which uses popular songs of the period to set the scene, Carolyn Pickles is Hester, Anton Lesser is her husband, Sir William Collyer, and Tom Mison is test pilot Freddie Page.
08. Separate Tables. Terence Rattigan's classic stage play about a group of residents in a small hotel who discover that one of their number is harbouring a devastating secret.
09. Ross. Rattigan's play tells the story of T E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, who after the First War changed his name to Ross and joined the RAF.
10. Man and Boy. This performance of Terence Rattigan's final play features Alan Bates as fraudulent international financier Gregor Antonescu, who, with his worldwide empire facing collapse, flees to the New York apartment of his estranged son Basil.
11. A Bequest to the Nation. Set in Bath and London, Autumn 1805. Lord Nelson returns to England after two years at sea seeking rest with Emma Hamilton. But he is plagued continually not only by Lady Hamilton's indiscretions, but also by self-seeking relatives and by his own guilt for the pain his conduct has caused his wife.
Two versions available for A Bequest to the Nation:
1981 version with Michael Bryant, Sian Phillips, Anna Massey, Alan Lake.
2005 version with Kenneth Branagh,
Janet McTeer, Amanda Root, Gerard Horan.
12. In Praise of Love. A number of Terence Rattigan's plays e.g. The Winslow Boy, Separate Tables, The Deep Blue Sea, Cause Celebre were triggered by real incidents - and 'In Praise of Love' is no exception. In the mid-1950s his friend, Rex Harrison, told him that his wife, the talented Kay Kendall, was dying of leukaemia, but she but she didn't know and he would never tell her. Twenty years later Rattigan wrote this, his very last stage play, which was produced in 1973 and subsequently on Broadway, with Rex Harrison himself in the lead, triggered by this true event. The play is precisely what the title says it is - but it doesn't praise youthful passion; it praises mature, spiritual love and devotion. Within the play a character says that the English vice is never to show emotion. Each of the two middle-aged spouses withhold information from the other to protect their partner. But each knows the truth - Lydia, the wife, is dying of an incurable disease and only an American friend is told the true facts by both of them. Of course we, the audience, know their secrets too, and therein lie our tears. The critic Harold Hobson called it "the most moving expression of love that I have ever seen on a stage...a compact heart-breaking masterpiece".
13. Cause Célèbre. The Old Vic Theatre's recent production of Terence Rattigan's gripping courtroom drama, directed by Thea Sharrock, starring Anne Marie Duff and Niamh Cusack.
2011 marks the centenary of Terence Rattigan's birth. Cause Celebre was originally a radio play, produced by the BBC in 1975. Rattigan was fascinated by a sensational murder trial at the Old Bailey in 1935 concerning an elderly architect allegedly killed by his much younger wife Alma and George, their handsome odd-job boy. The popular press had a field day - tales of sex, drugs, alcohol and gore were plastered across the papers. The play follows the course of the murder trial and its impact on Edith Davenport, the morally upright forewoman of the jury. Edith is forced to reconsider her initial condemnation of the life-affirming, morally relaxed Alma.
14. The Man and His Work. Clive Merrison reads from Michael Darlow's biography of playwright Terence Rattigan, abridged by Kate Blackadder. (If you are unfamiliar with Terence Rattigan, this will familiarize you with his work and his background.)
