Review: While the Sun Shines (Theatre Royal Bath)
You can see the thinking behind it. Ever since the National produced a revelatory After The Dance, with an about to go stratospheric Bennedict Cumberbatch in 2010, producers and directors across the country must have delved into Terence Rattigan's back catalogue in the hope of discovering more gold. In its choice of While the Sun Shines Theatre Royal Bath productions have taken a punt on his most popular commercial work during his lifetime – it ran for over 1,000 performances – but a play that has hardly been touched since.
Which is odd as while the play can hardly make any claims as a forgotten masterpiece, it is a well crafted night. Well crafted fluff, admittedly, but it passes its two hours running time pleasantly enough and there are other works in the canon which offer not much more and yet get repeated showings. It won't win over many new converts to the church of Rattigan but its unlikely to excommunicate any either.
It's a play that finds its template and structure in the French farces of Labiche and Feydeau and sticks to the classical unities of Aristotle – very few were as well read as Rattigan. An American Lieutenant (Rupert Young) wakes up in the flat of The Earl of Harpenden (Rob Heaps) after a messy night out, mistakes the Earl's fiancée as a tart and proceeds to seduce her. The actual tart is in love with the Earl, a Frenchman has also fallen in love with the Earl's intended on the train ride down to London and the lady's father turns puce with apoplexy as the various scenarios play out in front of him. With the wedding due to take place in the morning the various machinations happen over the course of twenty four hours and we are left guessing to the very last minute if anyone will head to the altar.
It's a good choice putting the play into the hands of director Christopher Luscombe who has proven himself as one of the country's strongest directors of comedy. He keeps the tone light and finds the heightened rhythm that the piece needs as well as overseeing universally strong performances in its seven strong cast. Heaps is a boyish charmer, sitting on a goldmine but unable to gain a promotion to the officer class in his wartime position while Young is a brawny American that can talk his way into any heart (or more likely pants). There is a comedy Frenchman from Nicholas Bishop who proves the third complication in obtaining the heart of Alexandra Dowling's fiancée, who with her radiant beauty and no-nonsense clarity of thought makes it obvious why half of London is falling at her feet. Tamla Kari is the tart with a heart who keeps finding herself relegated to the kitchen but eventually finds her position elevated while the performance of the night is from Michael Cochrane who as the potential father-in-law explodes in variously entertaining ways as his plans for a good match for his family begin to turn against him.
Designer Robert Jones has placed a handsome Albany chamber on the Theatre Royal stage and the whole evening has that high-vis sheen that has become a trademark of the theatre. It may not have the depth or iconic characters of his master works but While The Sun Shines proves that very few know how to put together a play the way Rattigan did. Don't be surprised to see this on a few more stages in the not to distant future.
While the Sun Shines runs at Theatre Royal Bath until the 30 July'
