French Without Tears at the Orange Tree Theatre
TERENCE Rattigan’s first play is his least revived.
French Without Tears: Enormously enjoyable.
Set in 1936, a bunch of posh boys are aiming for high-flying careers in the diplomatic service and sequestered in a French private school for a crammer in the lingo leading to amusing exchanges on cultural and gender differences.
But for a play written off for decades as froth, an undercurrent in Paul Miller’s production hints at a perilous period in history.
Not so much a battle of the sexes as full-blown warfare, it is driven by two women, the tutor’s pretty daughter Jacqueline (Sarah Winter) and Diane (Genevieve Gaunt), sister of the youngest boy and bosom-flouting maneater.
The flimsy plot is hardly enough to hang a hat on but Rattigan succeeds through a combination of sparkling dialogue and romantic farce. Surrounded with banal textbook phrases chalked on blackboards, the characters spring to life over coffee and baguettes, books and cigarettes.
Tom Hanson brings his customary hearty roguishness to the dim but dashing Brian while the boys quickly develop too from wannabe writer Alan (Alex Bhat) to Kit (Joe Eyre) who is besotted with Diane until stiff-necked naval commander Rogers (William Belchambers) arrives to complicate things.
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As jealousy erupts it is clear Rattigan is dramatising the battle of the sexes; women are the “enemy” and must be “engaged” as in a military action. The shadow of imminent war is present too.
Alan wears a German officer’s coat to be provocative and there is a row about “conchies”. Masculinity’s veneer is paper thin and the fear of women is a metaphor for fear of foreigner sand possibly of homosexuality too. Enormously enjoyable.
FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS at the Orange Tree Theatre, until November 21. Tickets: 020 8940 3633; orangetreetheatre.co.uk.