On a Friday in November 1957, Rupert Hart-Davis was invited to lunch by Cecil Beaton at his house in Pelham Place. There was a butler and the other guests were Nancy Cunard, Mrs Ian Fleming and Somerset Maugham.
R H-D says that Maugham was “older and more lizard-like than ever”. He continues, “when he came in, Cecil said; “Willie, you look so sweet I shall kiss you” – which he did”.
That is a digression to get to another gay hug in 1972, at a party to celebrate Terrence Rattigan’s knighthood. There had been a long rivalry between Rattigan and Noël Coward but Coward had got his K three years earlier and was in generous mood, giving Rattigan a hug.
“For God’s sake, Noël,’ said Rattigan, ‘everyone will think we’re having an affair.’ ‘Why not,’ Coward asked, ‘It’s perfectly legal, very suitable and, considering our combined ages, extremely unlikely.’
They were both successful commercially but which was the better playwright? Forty years ago Coward would have won, but now? I took some cousins of Rattigan to LAMDA on Saturday to see Flare Path. I hadn’t seen it before, they had seen a successful West End production. Inevitably they compared. Making allowance for the LAMDA production having a low budget and the cast being necessarily all the same age, LAMDA came out well. The audience were in high spirits – mostly fellow LAMDA students – but were completely silent in the right places. It was both funny and moving. Rattigan is a professional at keeping an audience engaged and a relatively inexperienced cast could make (almost) as good a job of it as their professional, experienced counterparts in the West End.
This is the nub of it. If LAMDA students put on Noël Coward it would seem creaky and unfunny. Coward just about works with a seasoned cast who know how to milk the audience for laughs. Coward’s plays today seem one dimensional compared to Rattigan’s more layered plots and more complex characterisation.
Rattigan wins, hands down.
Very good comparison between NC and TR as to performability and also the layers of content. But it is worth remembering that NC wrote one of the sharpest bits of pre-WW2 social commentary we have: This Happy Breed. That had content galore.
Also, it is V interesting to compare TR with his most obvious antagonist: John Osborne. JO’s social observation was not so much acute as accidentally powerful. But JO, I have decided, was a frustrated Romantic, and intensely so. He and Rattigan are equals, but very different: Rattigan superbly delivers his moderate aims and Osborne stumbles as he reaches for the stars. (My view of JO is more The Entertainer and Luther than LBIA).
My grandmother never allowed us to meet her Rattigan cousin. She regarded him as louche and distinctly unsafe in taxis for both sexes. I regret this very much – he is a wonderful playwright and knocks Coward into a cocked hat. The Winslow Boy is my favourite and The Browning Version is also very good.
Your analysis is spot on and your praise of the LAMDA production well-deserved – we enjoyed every moment. Floreat LAMDA!
Coincidently, when we performed the “Winslow boy” at school, I was sat in the wings reading “Private Lives” from my mothers RADA script with student cast including John Woodvine and Ian Holm.
The Rattigan was a disturbing examination on morality and predudice. Coward on the other hand was more of a satire around social mores pre WW2.
Yup, Rattigan gets it. But at the time I was finding the Coward a light relief.