In collaboration with Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Living Theatre Productions, Summer 1954 pairs together, for the first time, two short dramas by one of Britain's most popular 20th-century playwrights: Terrence Rattigan.

Directed by Olivier Award-winning James Dacre and set on a revolving stage, the plays capture one quietly momentous evening 70 years ago in post-war Britain, along the way exploring issues such as loneliness, concealment, exclusion, repression and sexuality.

Table Number Seven (from Separate Tables) premiered in 1956 and is set in the dining and sitting rooms of a Bournemouth boarding house mostly populated by long-term residents whose income no longer covers the expenses of running their own homes. It tells the story of a friendship between a spinster and a man pretending to be a retired army officer.

When Major Pollock is exposed for ‘importuning’, or propositioning men, Mrs Railton-Bell, the spinster’s domineering and self-righteous mother, demands he is expelled from the premises. However, the other guests, including her own brow-beaten daughter, refuse to support her attempts to humiliate and ostracise him. Whilst not exactly embracing Pollock, they offer a degree of acceptance by including him in quintessentially British conversations about cricket and the weather - a hopeful plea from Rattigan perhaps for a more open-minded attitude towards homosexuality.

The original script for Table Number Seven was discovered after Rattigan’s death, so was never performed during his lifetime. During the post-war years, references to homosexuality were not allowed on stage and gay men were forced to hide their sexuality. Prior to the discovery of the original script, performances of the play saw Major Pollock being accused of sexually harassing women in a cinema - male behaviour which, at the time, was considered ‘the lesser of two evils’ when compared to the ‘sin’ of propositioning other men. By reviving the original script, audiences are given the opportunity to consider the impact which prejudice and oppression would have had on gay men during Rattigan’s lifetime.

The second play, The Browning Version - considered by many to be Rattigan’s finest work - premiered in 1948. It takes place in a public school in the south of England in the private rooms of Classics teacher Andrew Crocker-Harris. Due to ill health, he is on the verge of moving to teach at a less prestigious school. The play focuses on the marital disharmony between the schoolmaster and his embittered, unfaithful wife. When a pupil gives him a farewell gift of Browning’s translation of Agamemnon, Crocker-Harris is caught emotionally off balance, forcing him to reflect on his situation and to reconsider his next move, both personally and professionally.

Nathaniel Parker plays the central character in both Table Number Seven and The Browning Version, giving touching and believable portrayals of two men who are forced by circumstances to address their personal failings. In both plays there are altercations with fierce and foreboding female characters. At 91 years of age, Sian Phillips gives a compelling performance as the highly unpleasant Mrs Railton-Bell. Her withering glares are truly something to behold!

In The Browning Version, Lolita Chakrabarti plays Crocker-Harris’ scathing and spiteful wife with enormous skill, eliciting on occasion incredulous gasps from the audience for her brutal disregard of her husband’s feelings. The whole cast give excellent performances, portraying characters who very much play their part in bringing to life a post-war Britain in which repressing emotions and presenting a stiff upper-lip were emphatically the order of the day.

Although Summer 1954 is a period piece, it still has the capacity to resonate with modern-day audiences, and makes for a thoroughly engaging and thought-provoking evening of theatre.

Five Stars

Summer 1954 was reviewed by Sue Hull on Tuesday 5 November at Malvern Theatres, where it shows until Saturday 9 November