The Winslow Boy

Synopsis

Drama about a family's moral legal case that creates national interest. Fourteen year old Ronnie Winslow is expelled from Osborne Naval College accused of stealing a postal order. Ronnie swears he did not do it, and so his father Arthur begins a fight to prove his son's innocence. The whole Winslow family is drawn into the consequences of the court action. First performed in London in 1946.

Our Review:

31 March 2012

This is another canny choice by the Octagon, not least because it’s a gripping minor masterpiece from a suddenly-fashionable-again playwright.

Fourteen-year-old Ronnie Winslow is expelled from naval college, accused of stealing a postal order. The lad swears he didn’t do it, and so his father Arthur begins a fight to prove his son’s innocence.

When Arthur decides to employ top barrister Sir Robert Morton, the family is split – his high legal fees prevent elder son Dickie from continuing at Oxford and although daughter Kate supports her father and admires the supercilious Morton, it jeopardizes her future happiness when her fiance’s father threatens to withdraw his son’s allowance.

Though first seen in 1946, Rattigan, basing his play on a real-life case, sets it just before the 1914-18 war, with middle-class society on the eve of disintegration, and delivers a state-of-the-nation address about the battle between an entrenche...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Mark Leigh - 21 April 2012:

In my opinion, the production was ok worth going to see, but was ploddingly slow, mostly due to the father, Arthur. It seemed self-indulgent and needed a good half an hour knocking off it. The 15 year-old actor who played the Winslow Boy did very well but his numerous broad northern vowels which reminded us where he was really from. He was taller than all the other actors and looked older than his years which didn't sit well with trying to act like a little boy. His sister just didn't do it for me: arm waving is not acting, too quiet, not confident enough and not strong enough as a leading suffragette. Most of them could do with speaking up as when they had their backs to you, you had difficulty hearing them. ...

Read more and add your own review