Terence Rattigan | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Rattigan byAllan Warren | |
| Born | (1911-06-10)10 June 1911 South Kensington, London, England |
| Died | 30 November 1977(1977-11-30) (aged 66) |
| Other names | Terence Mervyn Rattigan |
| Occupation | Playwright |
Sir Terence Mervyn RattiganCBE (10 June 1911 – 30 November 1977) was a Britishdramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.[1] He wroteThe Winslow Boy (1946),The Browning Version (1948),The Deep Blue Sea (1952) andSeparate Tables (1954), among many others.
A troubled homosexual who saw himself as an outsider,[2] Rattigan wrote a number of plays which centred on issues of sexual frustration, failed relationships, or a world of repression and reticence.[3][2]
Terence Rattigan was born in 1911 inSouth Kensington,[4] London, ofIrish extraction.[5] He had an elder brother, Brian. They were the grandsons of SirWilliam Henry Rattigan, a notable India-based jurist and later a Liberal Unionist Member of Parliament forNorth-East Lanarkshire. His father was Frank RattiganCMG, a diplomat whose exploits included an affair with PrincessElisabeth of Romania (future consort of KingGeorge II of Greece) which resulted in her having an abortion.[1] The Royal House of Romania is considered to be the inspiration of Rattigan's playThe Sleeping Prince.[6]
Rattigan's birth certificate and his birth announcement inThe Times indicate he was born on 9 June 1911. However, most reference books state that he was born the following day; Rattigan himself never publicly disputed this date. There is evidence suggesting that the date on the birth certificate is incorrect.[4] He was given no middle name, but he adopted the middle name "Mervyn" in early adulthood.[citation needed]
Rattigan was educated atSandroyd School[7] from 1920 to 1925, at the time based inCobham, Surrey (and now the home ofReed's School), andHarrow School. Rattigan played cricket for the Harrow First XI and scored 29 in theEton–Harrow match in 1929.[8] He was a member of the Harrow SchoolOfficer Training Corps and organised a mutiny, informing theDaily Express. Even more annoying to his headmaster,Cyril Norwood, was the telegram from the Eton OTC, "offering to march to his assistance".[9] He then went toTrinity College, Oxford.
Success as a playwright came early, with the comedyFrench Without Tears in 1936, set in acrammer. This was inspired by a 1933 visit to a village calledMarxzell in theBlack Forest, where young English gentlemen went to learn German; his time briefly overlapped with his Harrow classmateJock Colville.[9]
Rattigan's determination to write a more serious play producedAfter the Dance (1939), a satirical social drama about the "bright young things" and their failure to politically engage. The outbreak of the Second World War scuppered any chances of a long run. Shortly before the war, Rattigan had written (together with Anthony Goldsmith) a satire about Nazi Germany,Follow My Leader; theLord Chamberlain refused to license it on grounds of offence to a foreign country, but it was performed from January 1940.[10]
During the war, Rattigan served in theRoyal Air Force as a tail gunner; his experiences helped inspireFlare Path. In 1943 Rattigan, then anRAF Flight Lieutenant, was posted to theRAF Film Production Unit to work onThe Way to the Stars (a substantial reworking and adaption for film ofFlare Path) andJourney Together.[11]
After the war, Rattigan alternated between comedies and dramas, establishing himself as a major playwright: the most successful of which wereThe Winslow Boy (1946),The Browning Version (1948),The Deep Blue Sea (1952), andSeparate Tables (1954).
Rattigan's belief in understated emotions and craftsmanship was deemed old fashioned and "pre-war" after the overnight success in 1956 ofJohn Osborne's playLook Back in Anger began the era ofkitchen sink dramas by the writers known as theAngry Young Men. Rattigan responded to this critical disfavour with some bitterness. His later plays—Ross,Man and Boy,In Praise of Love, andCause Célèbre—although showing no sign of any decline in his talent, are less well-known than his earlier works. Rattigan explained that he wrote his plays to please a symbolic playgoer, "Aunt Edna", someone from the well-off middle-class who had conventional tastes; his critics frequently used this character as the basis for belittling him.[12] "Aunt Edna" inspiredJoe Orton to create "Edna Welthorpe", a mischievousalter ego stirring up controversy about his own plays.[13]
Rattigan washomosexual,[14] with numerous lovers but no long-term partners, a possible exception being his "congenial companion ... and occasional friend" Michael Franklin.[15] From 1944 to January 1947 he enjoyed a volatile affair with the politicianHenry "Chips" Channon who detailed the relationship in his diary published posthumously in 2022.[16]
It has been claimed his work is essentiallyautobiographical, containing coded references to his sexuality, which was known by some in the theatrical world but not known to the public. There is some truth in this, but it risks being crudely reductive; for example, the repeated claim that Rattigan originally wroteThe Deep Blue Sea as a play about male lovers, turned at the last minute into a heterosexual play, may be unfounded,[17] though Rattigan said otherwise.[18]
On the other hand, for the Broadway staging ofSeparate Tables, he wrote an alternative version of the newspaper article in which Major Pollock's indiscretions are revealed to his fellow hotel guests; in this version, those whom the Major approached for sex were men rather than young women. However, Rattigan changed his mind about staging it, and the original version proceeded.[19][20]
Rattigan was fascinated with the life and character ofT. E. Lawrence. In 1960, he wrote a play calledRoss, based on Lawrence's exploits. Preparations were made to film it, andDirk Bogarde accepted the role. However, it did not proceed because theRank Organisation withdrew its support, not wishing to offendDavid Lean andSam Spiegel, who had started to filmLawrence of Arabia. Bogarde called Rank's decision "my bitterest disappointment". Also in 1960, a musical version ofFrench Without Tears was staged asJoie de Vivre, with music byRobert Stolz ofWhite Horse Inn fame. It starredDonald Sinden, lasted only four performances, and has never been revived.
Rattigan was diagnosed withleukaemia in 1962 but seemingly recovered two years later. He fell ill again in 1968. He disliked the so-called "Swinging London" of the 1960s and moved abroad, living inBermuda, where he lived off the proceeds from lucrative screenplays includingThe V.I.P.s andThe Yellow Rolls-Royce. For a time he was the highest-paid screenwriter in the world.[21]
In 1964, Rattigan wrote to the playwrightJoe Orton congratulating the latter on his very dark comedyEntertaining Mr Sloane, to which Rattigan had escortedVivien Leigh in its first week. He had invested £3,000 in getting the play transferred to the West End. Although an unlikely champion of therisqué Orton, Rattigan recognised the younger man's talent and approved of what he considered a well-written piece of theatre. He also acknowledged in retrospect that, "in a way, I was not Orton's best sponsor. I'm a very unfashionable figure still, and I was then wildly unfashionable critically. My sponsorship rather put critics off, I think."[22]
Rattigan wasknighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1971 for services to the theatre, being only the fourth playwright to be knighted in the 20th century (after SirW. S. Gilbert in 1907, SirArthur Wing Pinero in 1909 and SirNoël Coward in 1970).[23] He had previously been appointed Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE), in June 1958. He moved back to Britain, where he experienced a minor revival in his reputation before his death.[24]
Rattigan died inHamilton, Bermuda, frombone cancer on 30 November 1977, aged 66. His cremated remains were deposited in the family vault atKensal Green Cemetery.[25]
In 1990, theBritish Library acquired Rattigan's papers consisting of 300 volumes of correspondence and papers relating to his prose and dramatic works.[26]
There was a revival ofThe Deep Blue Sea in 1993, at theAlmeida Theatre, London, directed byKarel Reisz and starringPenelope Wilton. A string of successful revivals followed, includingThe Winslow Boy at theChichester Festival Theatre in 2001 (withDavid Rintoul, and subsequently on tour in 2002 withEdward Fox),Man and Boy at theDuchess Theatre, London, in 2005, withDavid Suchet as Gregor Antonescu, andIn Praise of Love at Chichester, andSeparate Tables at theRoyal Exchange, Manchester, in 2006. His play on the last days ofLord Nelson,A Bequest to the Nation, was revived onRadio 3 forTrafalgar 200, starringJanet McTeer as Lady Hamilton,Kenneth Branagh as Nelson, andAmanda Root as Lady Nelson.
Thea Sharrock directed his rarely seenAfter the Dance in the summer of 2010 at London'sRoyal National Theatre. She directed a major new production of Rattigan's final and also rarely seen playCause Célèbre atThe Old Vic in March 2011 as part of The Terence Rattigan Centenary[27] year celebrations. As well as this,Trevor Nunn marked the occasion with a West End revival ofFlare Path at theTheatre Royal, Haymarket, between March and June 2011, starringSienna Miller,James Purefoy andSheridan Smith.[28]
In 2011, theBBC presentedThe Rattigan Enigma by Benedict Cumberbatch,[2] a documentary on Rattigan's life and career presented by actorBenedict Cumberbatch, who, like Rattigan, attendedHarrow.
A new screen version ofThe Deep Blue Sea, directed byTerence Davies, was released in 2011, starringRachel Weisz andTom Hiddleston.[29]
Many of Rattigan's stage plays have been produced for radio by the BBC. The first play he wrote directly for radio wasCause Célèbre, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 27 October 1975, based on the 1935 murder ofFrancis Rattenbury.
A number of Rattigan's plays have been filmed (he was the screenwriter or co-writer for all those made in his lifetime):
Terence Rattigan also wrote or co-wrote the following original screenplays:
Rattigan wrote or co-wrote the following screenplays from existing material by other writers:
Wolfe, Peter.Terence Rattigan: The Playwright as Battlefield. Lexington, 2019.
Other works including discussions on Rattigan's theatre:
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
