The Winslow Boy
Chichester Festival Theatre Until May 19, 2hrs 20mins
Terence Rattigan’s play – a huge hit in 1946 – is set just before the First World War and tells the story of Ronnie Winslow, a 14-year-old cadet who is expelled from naval college for allegedly stealing a five-shilling postal order. Ronnie skulks home to stand before his scary bankmanager father, who asks him if he did it – and it had better be the truth because ‘a lie between us cannot be hidden’.
What follows is the father’s two year battle (the story is based on a real case) to clear his son’s name.
He hires top superbrain barrister Sir Robert Morton, whose initial interview with the boy at home is one of the most brutal cross-examinations you’ll find in the theatre, and a reminder of just what a stunningly effective dramatist Rattigan was.
As the Winslow father, Aden Gillett is far from being a total stick in-the-mud – in this he’s funny, appallingly obsessive and horribly crippled with arthritis
The case takes over the family’s lives. The father’s pursuit of justice ruins them financially and requires that Ronnie’s wastrel brother leaves Oxford. The front-page scandal costs the Winslows’ daughter Catherine her engagement.
As the Winslow father, Aden Gillett is far from being a total stick-in-the-mud – in this he’s funny, appallingly obsessive and horribly crippled with arthritis as the ordeal takes its toll. Tessa Peake-Jones plays his exasperated wife – a woman who mostly frets about her limited wardrobe options for court.
The evening, however, belongs to Dorothea Myer-Bennett, so vivid as the Winslows’ suffragette daughter Catherine, whose quiet personal sacrifice becomes the play’s most moving aspect.
The cast isn’t the starriest you’ll ever see but this production is the most quietly thrilling account of Rattigan’s play I’ve seen
She initially loathes the reactionary, anti-women Sir Robert (Timothy Watson, amusingly Spock-like in his lack of emotion) but, by the end, clearly fancies him.
Rachel Kavanaugh’s intelligent production isn’t perfect – the lad playing young Ronnie is too old and tall for the part, and the turquoise set is too big to feel inhabited. But it’s a gripping yarn, very timely in its feminism, and it utterly banishes any pong of mothballs.
The cast isn’t the starriest you’ll ever see but this production is the most quietly thrilling account of Rattigan’s play I’ve seen.
Quartet
Cheltenham Everyman Theatre Until April 21, 2hrs 30mins
Ronald Harwood’s 1999 comedy ended up as a film six years ago, directed by Dustin Hoffman. The stage original has now been given a tot of rum in its cocoa and sent out on the road.
It’s about four former opera singers who end up in the same retirement home, where the residents refer to themselves as ‘inmates’ and the motto is NSP (no self-pity).
It’s about four former opera singers who end up in the same retirement home, where the residents refer to themselves as ‘inmates’ and the motto is NSP (no self-pity)
Paul Nicholas plays Wilf, an incorrigible bottom-pincher who voices his pornographic fantasies about Cecily – played by Wendi Peters in surgical tights.
When ageing diva Jean Horton (Sue Holderness) arrives – with her bad hip and swollen ego – it upsets the fastidious Reggie (Jeff Rawle) who was briefly married to her.
To boost flagging morale, the four agree to put on the third act quartet from the opera Rigoletto at the annual in-house Verdi celebration concert.
Paul Nicholas goes in for a tedious, gravelly delivery. Sue Holderness, too, is miscast as the vainglorious soprano
With zero drama to offer, the play really depends on a cast of senior thesps to have fun with the lines – and that doesn’t happen.
Paul Nicholas goes in for a tedious, gravelly delivery. Sue Holderness, too, is miscast as the vainglorious soprano.
Jeff Rawle has his moments but only when abusing the unseen staff, and Wendi Peters, clowning with a horseshoe frown, gets most of the laughs. The concert’s lip-synching finale is a baffling anti-climax.
Seldom in Peter Rowe’s inert production did I beam indulgently at these oldsters, or feel the comedy’s sunset glow. Not a total disaster, but not far off.