The Winslow Boy

There are plays that you see once and that’s enough and there are plays that you can see over and over again and never tire of them. The Winslow Boy is the latter, but particularly when it is as beautifully directed and played as in this current production. There is a timeless quality to the core of this moral story and here director Rachel Kavanaugh has truly brought this to the fore. The play may be set in the years running up to the First World War but somehow it has a contemporary ring to it in every sense. Morality, politics and love are all challenged in Terence Rattigan’s beautifully crafted script and his words seem so modern, those ideas so contemporary that it is hard to believe that this was written in 1946, yes the mannered speech of the era is there – but it does not have any sense of being archaic.

Aiden Gillet is remarkable as Arthur Winslow, delightfully paced and gentle in his passion for doing the right thing. Dorothea Myer-Bennett plays the motivated and thoroughly modern Catherine with skill and with humour too, her resignation to the cause, her brother’s and that of women’s sufferage taking first place above all else in her life. Tessa Peak-Jones is delightful as Mrs Winslow, again resigned to support her husband’s cause of doing the right thing despite the impact on their personal circumstances. Timothy Watson is superb as Sir Robert Morton, steely and focused from the start but finally showing that beneath that hard “fish like” surface there is a heart and that heart is melted by… well it’s not the job of a review to give the plot away.

This is a stunningly good production, beautifully set and dressed but above all finely delivered by both cast and director and a clear reminder that Rattigan is a massively important writer and one that has not dated or lost relevance. This surely is must see theatre for all ages, a clear reminder of the very best that theatre can offer.

Theatre Royal Brighton

23 April

Andrew Kay

Rating: