Richard Davies says the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond’s revival of the Terrence Rattigan classic “While the Sun Shines” is champagne for the soul...
OUR VERDICT
Whenever a classic play is revived, the question that always springs to my mind is ‘why now?’ Watching “While the Sun Shines” at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, I think I worked out the answer pretty quickly. This delightful comedy by Terence Rattigan was first performed more than 75 years ago in wartime Britain. Imagine what life was like for those early audiences: worn down by years of European conflict, exhausted by a constant sense of fear and foreboding and desperate for anything that provides some light relief and escapism. Sounds familiar? Rattigan’s comedy is simply champagne for the soul, an effervescent celebration of an upper-class British way of life that raises a glass to its own impending extinction. Imagine Jeeves and Wooster in a Whitehall farce. Unsurprisingly, the play was an instant hit, running for more than 1000 performances. Judging by the audience reaction on press night, this production will also be a brilliant success.
To briefly set the scene: the Earl of Harpenden is a wealthy young aristocrat considered too feckless to be awarded an officer’s commission. Despite serving four years as a naval rating, he sees no contradiction in getting his butler, Horton to tie his bootlaces. While on leave to marry his fiancée, Lady Elisabeth, the hopelessly naïve daughter of the Duke of Ayr and Stirling, Lord Harpenden picks up a drunken young American officer, Lieutenant Mulvaney, at a ‘bottle party’ and like the good Samaritan he is, brings him home to sleep it off in his Albany chambers. But things start to go wrong when Lord Harpenden, in a pre-nuptial tidying up exercise, attempts to set up Mulvaney with his mistress, the unashamedly popular Mabel Crum, who has a thing for Americans, if not for anyone in uniform. Unfortunately, instead of Crum, it is Lady Elizabeth who walks through the door to receive the full force of Mulvaney’s mistaken ardour. The wedding plans are further threatened by Lieutenant Colbert, a French officer that Lady Elizabeth has met on her travels who is similarly determined to impress her with his passion.
There are some very fine performances from a highly talented cast. Philip Labey totally convinces as the Earl of Harpenden, a true English gentleman who meekly accepts whatever fate dictates – a serviceman who can’t bear conflict. Sabrina Bartlett (who will be familiar to Poldark fans) was also excellent as the bright-eyed Lady Elisabeth, the WAAF Corporal with a very un-British ‘ring-of-Colgate’ smile. Michael Lumsden is hilarious as her father, the Duke and senior Army officer, especially when he speaks Franglais to Lt Colbert. Best of all, Dorothea Myer-Bennett is quite wonderful as the redoubtable Mable Crum, who gives as good as she gets when it comes to love and war, and is the only character with any real self-knowledge.
The Orange Tree’s intimate theatre in the round staging adds an extra dimension to the comedy, with the audience seated around the edges of the drawing room, beautifully designed by Simon Daw including perfect little touches like the packet of ‘Craven A’ cigarettes. Paul Miller has directed the play with pace, energy and a lightness of touch, particularly with the various comedic references to men sharing a bed (on one occasion ‘three in a bed’) which must at the time have felt quite risqué but which now feel slightly nostalgic.