The Browning Version

Synopsis

Powerful, sensitive and with flashes of broad humour, The Browning Version is set in an English public school on the eve of retirement of failed classics master, Andrew Crocker-Harris. As he confronts the wreckage of his marriage and career, his flat is invaded by a succession of visitors, revelations and betrayals.

Our Review:

15 September 2011

The final stage of Chichester's Rattigan celebration couples his one-act play of thwarted ambition and loveless marriage with a new play from David Hare looking at life in a public school about 15 years later, at the start of 60s.

Hare's opener has as its main theme that of Blakemore, a friendless boy at a public school (his outsider status rather heavy-handedly emphasised by his perpetual reading of L'Etranger), his struggles to come to terms with the pointlessness of the school rules, the dislike of his fellow pupils and his struggles with the Anglicanism that lies at the heart of the school's ethos. Jeremy Herrin’s production captures the claustrophobic atmosphere of a venerable institution trying to come to terms with the onset of a modern age.

Alex Lawther perfectly captures the awkwardness of Blakemore well and there's good support too from Anna Chancellor as the sympathetic mother of a fellow pupil, Nicholas Farrell as his sympathetic but...

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Latest User Review

Gareth James - 12 October 2011:

This is the sixth, and probably last, of my Rattigan centenary productions. His short one-acter, The Browning Version, set in a public school in the 40¡¯s is usually paired with another one-acter called Harlequinade. Here it¡¯s paired with a new play from David Hare set in a similar school 20 years later. Rattigan¡¯s play is a deeply moving tale of a school master with an unfaithful wife and unfair employer, but at its heart is an act of kindness by a pupil. A set of superb performances make Angus Jackson¡¯s production shine like a gem. Nicholas Farrell as the master is initially pompous and irritating, but then almost breaks your heart. Anna Chancellor is icy cold as his unfaithful wife and Mark Umbers diffident but ultimately sympathetic as her lover. Liam Morton gives a very nuanced performance as the boy, a most auspicious professional debut. It¡¯s a subtle and sensitive staging which benefits greatly from the intimacy of the Minerva space. Hare¡¯s ¡®curtain raiser¡¯ shows 60¡äs boys more questioning and challenging, but little else has changed in public schools with bullying a fact of daily school life. Older pupil Jeremy takes young John under his wing introducing him to his mother, Anna Chancellor now in a much more sympathetic role. Again, an act of kindness is at the heart of the play, but this time we see things from the perspective of the pupil. The younger boys ¨C Alex Lawther¡¯s John, Jack Elliott¡¯s Gunter (two more outstanding professional debuts) and Bradley Hall¡¯s Jenkins are terrific and again the staging, this time by Jeremy Herrin, is subtle and sensitive. Though they are very different plays, they sit very comfortably together and provide a deeply rewarding and very human evening, linked by these acts of kindness 20 years apart and 50-70 years ago, yet timeless. ...

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