It would be quite inexcusable not to catch a Rattigan play in this the centenary year of his birth.
Flare Path, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, is an interesting choice for a revival. A semi-autobiographical work based on Rattigan’s own experience as wireless operator/air gunner, the first act was completed in Gibraltar (as Rattigan’s Sunderland was being repaired after a skirmish with a Heinkel), while the second was written in Bathurst in Gambia (on the verandah of the officer’s mess ‘with monkeys clambering about and everybody drinking gin and tonics going spectacularly to pieces […] – all of them looking over my shoulder while I wrote the thing’, according to Rattigan).
The play is set during the Second World War in a small Lincolnshire hotel near an RAF airbase, and takes place during the course of a single night. 'Glamour girl' Patricia Graham (Sienna Miller) must decide between her bluff, good-natured husband, Flight Lieutenant Teddy Graham (Harry Hadden-Paton), who she married in a 'whirlwind wartime romance' and knows so little, and her old flame Peter Kyle (James Purefoy), a suave, ageing matinée idol who was once her great love. Who will she choose?
Teddy is unexpectedly recalled for a secret night-time raid which turns out to be a ‘shaky do’. One of the lucky ones, he returns – more than half of all those who flew with Bomber Command never did – but with his confidence in tatters. Harry Hadden-Paton delivers a magnificent performance in a memorable scene where Teddy breaks down and confesses his fears to Patricia. She chooses to stay – a triumph of duty over passion. At the back of your mind, though, you wonder if their marriage survives the end of the War. I would have liked to have sensed more of Patricia's inner conflict. Does she stay with Teddy because this is a man she could learn to love, or because she feels it is the right thing to do? Does she regret letting Peter leave her life forever?
Other notable members of the cast include the Count Skriczevinsky (Mark Dexter), a Polish aristocrat who has lost everything to the Nazis, and Doris (Sheridan Smith), the barmaid he marries. The Count's poor English provides a vein of light relief throughout the play, but is also a barrier to Doris getting to know the man she has come to love. Sheridan Smith puts in a strong and endearing performance as the simple, good-natured Doris, whose quiet uncertainty about the Count's affections is eventually dispelled in a poignant and eloquent letter he writes to her (in French), affirming his love.
On the night the play opened at the Apollo in August 1942, Rattigan remembers 'standing rigidly to attention, while Air Marshal after Air Marshal approached the humble Flying Officer to tell him how his play should really have been written!' Churchill, who attended one of the performances, told the cast: 'I was very moved by this play. It is a masterpiece of understatement. But we are rather good at that, aren't we?'
