Do3 - 5 June: Flare Path

[french frank]

All the details are now posted on the new Rattigan production, so I think it merits a separate thread to mark the arrival of a new production. (That said, the Pownall on the 29th could probably be equally celebrated)

"Flare Path is a play by Terence Rattigan, written in 1941 and first staged in 1942. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star.

The title of the play refers to the flares that were used to light runways to allow planes to take off and land but the flare paths were also used by the Germans to target the RAF planes.
In writing the play, Terence Rattigan drew on his experiences as a tail gunner in the RAF Coastal Command."

[french frank]

I'm half an hour in, and, um, I don't think I'm going to make it ...

[DracoM]

It was OK. I thought they managed to sketch in the unspoken / unacknowledged tensions in the dialogue. Lot of surface and a sense of things lurking underneath quite nicely done?
Dated, but the core worked for me in a way.

[Pianorak]

I'm half an hour in, and, um, I don't think I'm going to make it ...

If it's an engine failure put out a Mayday call!

[Stanley Stewart]

I stayed the course but was a bit put off by the stream of one-liners throughout. Shrewdly, Rattigan must have eventually sensed the impact of the key scene with the stress fostered by sheer fear, in action, and cleverly adapted this aspect to his 1945 screenplay for "Way To The Stars" (1945), in a similar setting.

Incidentally, R4 kicked -off well today with the start of five programmes, The Rattigan Versions, which will be broadcast, daily, until Friday, 15.45-16.00 hrs. Today (6 June) Mark Lawson interviewed Princess Jean Galitzine who, apparently, was the basis for the central character of Anne, the politician's wife, (Margaret Leighton so glamorous in the West End 1954 production) in the first play which comprises "Separate Tables". Tomorrow, Mark Lawson will talk to Sir Ronald Harwood who adapted "The Browning Version" for the cinema.

Can I risk going even further off-topic by mentioning an intriguing play which will also be broadcast, tomorrow on R4, 14.15-15.00 hrs: Afternoon Play: A Monstrous Vitality? This is a segment from a biography of Margaret Rutherford which focusses on the Dame's liaison with Malcolm Troup when she was already married to actor Stringer Davis. June Whitfield should be ideal casting in the central role.

[salymap]

Thanks Stanley Stewart, how do I manage to miss so many good Radio programmes? Bad sight Iguess. The quarter hour slots every day are a good idea and recently I enjoyed similar programmes on W.S.Gilbert.

[Russ]

With all the current publicity being given to Rattigan's works, I'm wondering whether we expected this to be able to deliver more than what it could, for what is essentially a straightforward stage play, with nothing experimental, and nothing out of place. The play does rely on a few key admissions where the stiff-upper lips crack and admit what they really feel - the breezy RAF pilot husband Teddy hiding his 'plain bloody funk', his wife Pat struggling to terminate her relationship with her ex-lover Peter, coming to terms with his failing career as an actor, and the Polish airman's letter declaring his love for a wife he doesn't expect to see again. It worked well enough on radio, although these emotional highs couldn't match those that would be produced when augmented with the body-language of the stage. Nor sure whether I found it dated. Is understatement too out of fashion now?

Russ

[french frank]

It's rather harsh - since the play was written right in the middle of the war and in an immediate sense was about the war - to say that the storylines seemd cliched to me. Perhaps that just means it is dated (i.e. it wouldn't matter if was all completely original at the time: we've come across so many plays and films about the war since - seen one, seen them all). My recording came to an abrupt end just over half way through and I couldn't summon up the interest to listen to the rest on the iPlayer.

[aeolium]

Yes, that was my reaction, that characterisations, phrases, attitudes that may well have been quite fresh at the time the play was written have now become stale with familiarity as a result of all those war films, documentaries, memoirs etc - to the point where they are now just material for satire. I thought R3 would have done better to choose a different Rattigan play to mark the centenary, perhaps After the Dance which the NT revived recently.