Accolade

Synopsis

Will Trenting, famous for his scandalous novels, is about to be knighted - an accolade which will welcome him to the establishment. But Will has been leading a double life and the award turns a spotlight on it. Tales surface of drunken parties, orgies and rough trade, and on the eve of his knighthood Will is accused of a shocking crime. Threatened with blackmail, Will has to decide where his priorities lie. Darkly comic and shocking, Accolade blows the lid off British hypocrisy.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 7 February 2011

Emlyn Williams is a largely forgotten dramatist these days, but the invaluable Finborough has dug up a fascinating 1950 play, Accolade, that “exposes” a well-known novelist, Will Trenting, on the day he goes to the Palace to receive his knighthood.

The play was flagged up by Michael Billington in his magisterial State of the Nation tome; it certainly measures up to his suggestion that the public/private nature of the piece plonks it firmly, and favourably, between Rattigan and David Hare.

It’s also a play feeding our current hunger for bad news about celebs. Trenting, played with admirable, unflinching rectitude by Aden Gillett, has a “secret life” involving orgies and under-age girls in Rotherhithe. Williams led a similar “double” life as a married homosexual – rather like Michael Redgrave – and his family knew about it.

But the decoders overlook the sordid, “sic...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

No reviews yet

Click here to add your review