WHILE THE SUN SHINES at the Orange Tree - Wartime Bedfellows...

Terence Rattigan's centenary in 2011 heralded a continuing wave of successful revivals of his plays and re-evaluation of his mastery for exposing the sadness in the lives of the English upper-middle class in his most well-known works.  However Rattigan's first big success had been the comedy FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS which was revived in 2015 by the small Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond which proved so successful that they produced it again the following year.

Now the Orange Tree has revived another Rattigan comedy WHILE THE SUN SHINES, which premiered in the West End in 1943, next door to the theatre where his wartime drama FLAREPATH was already playing.  Remarkably - bearing in mind Rattigan also wrote such hits as THE DEEP BLUE SEA, THE WINSLOW BOY and SEPARATE TABLES - his longest West End run was WHILE THE SUN SHINES.  Interesting too that these two productions played next door to each other on Shaftesbury Avenue as they are two sides of the same coin - both contemporary plays set in WWII England, both focus on men and women in uniform but one is an emotional drama and the other a comedy.  WHILE THE SUN SHINES was such a hit that Anthony Asquith directed a film version four years later.

FLAREPATH is the better play but it is fascinating to see WHILE THE SUN SHINES especially as Rattigan works in several occasional gay references, needless to say, these moments are fleeting and soon explained away but must have made his gay audience members recognize them for what they were.  The Orange Tree's Artistic Director Paul Miller directed their revival of FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS and he returns to Rattigan here with the same gossamer touch, it's a production full of grace and humour.

Bobby, the young Earl of Harpenden is on leave from the Navy to marry his sweetheart Lady Elisabeth who is also in the services.  He is an affable, genial soul who tries for promotion but knows he will never amount to much in the Navy.  On the day before the wedding, Bobby's butler finds him in bed with an American Lieutenant Joe Mulvaney - Bobby had found Joe raving drunk in Piccadilly and brought him back to his flat in The Albany to sleep it off.

Joe is thrilled to see inside the world of the aristocracy so Bobby leaves him there while he goes for yet another promotion interview but not before phoning up his sometime-mistress Mabel Crum, a typist in the Ministry who is also the easiest party girl in London, to come over as she has a penchant for Americans.  Appearing instead is Lady Elisabeth to surprise Bobby - and of course Joe thinks she is Mabel and gets her sozzled before realizing too late who she really is.

But that's only the start of an evening of misunderstandings and changed allegiances - the confusion being added to by the appearance of Elisabeth's military father The Duke who cannot resist a chance to gamble, a Free French officer Colbert who Elizabeth met on the train to London and who now swears devotion to her and of course Mabel, who watches the romantic to-ings and fro-ings with the resigned air of someone who knows what she wants but settles for what she can get.

While never uproariously funny, Miller bounces the play along on a bright and breezy tone and is helped enormously by a charming cast who all play their characters with a similar light touch.  I particularly liked Philip Labey's Bobby who, while playing the louche aristo well, also hinted at an inner life of listless wandering, as well as Michael Lumsden's Duke, full of splenetic fury which vanishes as soon as a game of cards or dice is offered.  There was also a nice display of suppressed emotions too from John Hudson's butler Horton.

By far the best performance was Dorothea Myer-Bennett as practical party girl Mabel Crum, loving life in the blackouts but aware that she has to make hay while the sun shines.  A few years ago we saw Shaw's THE PHILANDERER at the Orange Tree and Myer-Bennett shone in that as a woman trying to be a Shavian New Woman but ruled by her volatile emotions and that element of loving cynicism shot through her performance as Mabel too; every time she was packed off to the offstage kitchen to keep one of the men out of the way, I wanted to follow her as she was by far the most interesting character.

I also want to highlight Simon Daw's cleverly economic set which suggested well the living room of Bobby's Albany flat.  I really enjoyed this opportunity to see yet another facet of Rattigan's ability to craft that sometimes derided thing - the well-constructed play - with a collection of characters who even at their silliest were all delightful.  Paul Miller has again triumphed in bringing an admittedly minor Rattigan work to his stage and making it shine.