Review: While the Sun Shines

By Christopher Walker

Christopher Walker reviews While the Sun Shines by Terrence Rattigan.

“Save the spam – it’s so good for sandwiches.” Some of the war time jokes may be lost on a contemporary woke audience. But for those with imagination, Rattigan’s While the Sun Shines is a delightful light comedy performed perfectly.

South London is blessed with several top-class theatres, and one of the best is the little Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

In the capable hands of artistic Director Paul Miller, of National Theatre fame, it has gone from strength to strength, and annexed a Victorian school to become a ‘theatre in the round.’ It specialises in staging new plays, and rediscovering classics.

Very much in the latter category is Terrence Rattigan’s delightful comedy While the Sun Shines.

Rattigan was re-introduced to London audiences by Trevor Nunn’s powerful production of Flare Path.

Fans of that piece may be surprised to learn that While the Sun Shines originally ran in a neighbouring theatre, and was even more successful.

In some ways they are contrasting twins. Both deal with life in the War, but whereas Flare Path brims with gritty realism, Sun Shines is pure escapism. Or is it?

Why so unheard of today? The answer is it is lost in time.

We are in a Mayfair drawing room, complete with butler carrying silver tray, where aristocrats look down their noses at Kensington, worry about which cocktail to drink, and who they are in love with….today.

This theatrical approach would be swept away by the post-war ‘kitchen sink’ dramas.

Here, the kitchen is very much off stage. The butler’s domain, where characters are relegated to when they misbehave.

And yet, this work is decidedly modern. Sex has been invited into the drawing room. Okay, maybe at this stage just as a cuddly plaything to be petted, rather than the snarling beast it would become under the kitchen table. But very much there, in a way that must have been wonderfully, shockingly, modern to the audience in 1943.

The plot is of course nonsense. The butler, a suitably stiff John Hudson, opens the bedroom door to discover who, the rather camp, Earl of Harpenden (played perfectly by Philip Labey), has picked up this time.

It is a lugubrious American Airman Joe (Conor Glean) who has shared his bed. Amicably, only, of course. Wink, wink.

Rattigan was gay, and normally hid his sexuality buried in his work. Here it is clearly not buried too deeply.

Writer Quentin Crisp always said he missed the Blitz because of its sexual opportunities.

Anyway, back to the drawing room. Lord Harpenden is to marry the beautiful Lady Elizabeth (Rebecca Collingwood charmingly channelling Brief Encounter).

Except last night Elizabeth met the French Lieutenant Colbert (Jordan Mifsud) on a train, and he has somewhat shaken up her world. Apparently, not very difficult given how she reacts to Joe after two large morning whiskies.

Colbert is a cartoonish French character.

Thin-skinned, overly emotional, and prone to outbursts about being mistreated. As such he will remind contemporary audiences perfectly of Emmanuel Macron, though he is more likely a thinly disguised portrait of General De Gaulle, then running French liberation from London.

Elizabeth’s father (the wonderful Michael Lumsden) seeks to save the day, while Harpenden’s old flame, Mabel Crum (played by Sophie Khan Levy) delights in the disruption.

Mabel is highly modern. She tells the audience she loves having sex with men – lots of it, and lots of them.

Remember this is 1943.

Overall, this is an excellent production, well directed with some top rate performances that bring out the comedy well.

For tickets go to https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/while-the-sun-shines

 

Pictured: Jordan Mifsud and Rebecca Collingwood in While The Sun Shines - photo by Ali Wright