It's a splendid thought that we'll be hearing lots about the too-long-undervalued Terence Rattigan in this his centenary year, not least because Sienna Miller will star in Flare Path at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. The opening salvo, however, goes to this tiny fringe venue, with a splendid staging of the restored version of a 1944 work that was mangled almost beyond recognition by leading theatrical couple the Lunts.
The Lunts weren't keen on Rattigan's sympathy for the Left-wing politics espoused by 17-year-old Michael (David Osmond), returning from evacuation to Canada to find his widowed mother Olivia (Sara Crowe) shacked up with separated Tory Cabinet minister/industrialist Sir John Fletcher (Michael Simkins). It's Hamlet on the Home Front, as Michael struggles to part the couple.
Heartily as we might concur with Michael's views on the Beveridge Report, Osmond makes him a disagreeably bumptious squirt. It's Crowe and the marvellous Simkins, a masterclass in passion simmering beneath the decorum, who provide the beating heart of Adrian Brown's witty and touching production.
They suggest real love behind the façade of well-to-do respectability, as well as comradeship that is hewn out of long-endured loneliness.
Let's hope the rest of the year's offerings live up to this.
Until Feb 12. Information: 020 7287 2875. jermynstreettheatre.co.uk
Less Than Kind
Jermyn Street Theatre
Jermyn Street, SW1Y 6ST
