The Winslow Boy (BBC 1977)
By Terence Rattigan
Directed by David Giles
Produced by Cedric Messina
BBC Play of The Month, January 1977
CAST
Eric Porter – Arthur Winslow, father
Alan Badel- Sir Robert Morton
Michelle Dotrice- Catherine Winslow, daughter
Diana Fairfax – Kate Winslow, mother
Adam Bareham – Dickie Winslow, older son
Jonathan Scott-Taylor – Ronnie Winslow, age 14
Ann Beach – Violet, housemaid to the Winslows
David Robb – John Watherstone, fiancé to Catherine
Jonathan Adams- Desmond Curry, solicitor
Gillian Martell- Miss Barnes, journalist
Clifford Parrish – First Lord of The Admiralty
Simon Chandler – Petty Officer
This is the third from the Rattigan Collection. I’ve missed (i.e. failed to book) a couple of recent stage productions of The Winslow Boy because I felt I’d seen it often enough. The 1948 film was a staple of winter afternoon TV on cold, wet days. Then there have been numerous TV productions. I have no idea whether I saw this at the time, but it’s unlikely. We thought we’d try this 1977 Play of The Month, having been surprised how much we had enjoyed the other two.
The play was staged in 1946, swiftly followed by the film with Cedric Hardwicke, Margaret Leighton and Robert Donat. Rattigan based it on a real case from 1908. He kept the detail of a boy being expelled from Osborne Naval College for the alleged theft of a five-shilling postal order. In the real story, it was the boy’s brother who defended him, and persuaded the father to support. They engaged the services of Sir Edward Carson, the most famous barrister of the era. The issue in defending the boy’s innocence was that as a naval cadet, he was a Crown employee and so technically they were prosecuting the Crown, which you cannot do. The Admiralty refused to open he case, but it was pursued all the way to Parliament who ruled it could go to court, and the boy was found innocent.
Rattigan changed all the names, and shifted the main protagonist to the father. He created a sub-plot family drama over the daughter, who became a Suffragette in his version. She is now the co-defender rather than the brother in the original case. He also time shifted it so that it ended just before World War One, to give a sense of urgency. If it were a current film it would have ‘BASED ON A TRUE STORY’ at the start (they nearly all do) and would finish with a series of photos of the real people with text saying what happened to them. Rattigan didn’t do that. It might have upset the audience if he had. The real cadet, George Archer-Shee, was killed in the first battle of Ypres on 31 October 1914. One of the very early casualties of the war.
The BBC Play of The Month used two actors from the previous Rattigan plays. Eric Porter, the father here, had starred in Separate Tables in 1970. David Robb as the fiancé was the hearty Brian in French Without Tears just a year earlier. The most difficult part was the daughter, Catherine. She was played by Michelle Dotrice. At the time she was still in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em (1973-78), as Betty, the long-suffering wife of Michel Crawford’s hapless Frank Spencer. It’s easy to admire her performance now, though in 1977 she had a mountain to climb in a serious lead role, when many of the audience would be thinking, Oooh, Betty! and Oh. Frank. I guess both were desperate to leave those characters behind. They’re the sort of sitcom characters where people (lots and lots) call out the buzz lines to you in the street. I’ve worked with actors where this happens. Crawford went for musicals. Dotrice into non-comedy roles.
Production values were high. Edwardian clothes and furniture are pretty standard TV fare, but they also had exteriors … the Naval college with Ronnie bording a carriage and traveling past trees, the car with Ronnie arriving. Crowds outside the court. There is a House of Commons scene which required a number of well-dressed extras. In the stage play, Arthur Winslow reads the report of the speech in the newspaper. In this, we see the First Lord of the Admiralty deliver the speech, with Sir Robert Morton opposite, feet on the bench, and with Catherine in the gallery. That is getting close to film rather than ‘TV Play.’ However, the vast majority sticks to the main Winslow drawing room. Uncredited extras also include a press photographer and a bunch of journalists in their hallway.
As the father, Arthur Winslow, there is a carefully weighted performance from Eric Porter. He starts off as the terrifying father, giving the older brother, Dickie, a good telling off. Dickie has criticised the doddery vicar at church that morning. Arthur is limping himself.
Arthur: I don’t think that’s very funny, Richard.
Dickie: Oh, don’t you, Father?
Arthur: Doddery though Mr Jackson may seem now, I very much doubt he failed in his pass mods when he was at Oxford.
Dickie: Dash it – Father – you promised me not to mention that again this vac.
Grace: You did, you know, Arthur.
Arthur: There was a condition to my promise – if you remember – that Dickie should provide me with reasonable evidence of his intentions to work. And to my certain knowledge you’ve done not one single stroke this weekend.
Dickie: Well, I do work awfully fast, once I get down to it.
Arthur: Oh, indeed? That assumption is hardly based on experience I take it.
Dickie: Dash it, Father., You are laying into me this morning.
(There is half a page of the play script cut after ‘intentions to work; I notice.)
It ends with sending him packing Dickie off with his gramophone. We are set up for Arthur’s attitude when we he hears about Ronnie. We expect rage. But Rattigan has led us up a blind alley.
Catherine has the sub plot with John Watherstone (David Robb). John arrives to ask for her hand, and we get the stern Arthur again. The interview between John and Arthur is somewhat reminiscent of the Lady Bracknell scene in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Arthur: Do you smoke?
John: Yes, sir. I do. Thank you. In moderation of course.
Me (in Lady B voice): Good, A young man should have a hobby.
Much is made of John’s military income and allowances from his father, ‘The Colonel.’ And Arthur generously offers a settlement of ‘one sixth of his capital.’ (NB: don’t get any ideas! To my kids.)
Catherine and John are left alone to discuss their happy engagement but are interrupted by young Ronnie’s return in disgrace through the French windows. In 1946 theatre sets had French windows more or less permanently in place. He has been hiding in the garden in the rain. Catherine reads the expulsion letter. Ronnie is packed off to bed.
The engagement will be bad news for Desmond Curry, the lugubrious family solicitor who always had an eye for her. He has arrived and when John hears he was a county cricketer, he tells Desmond he was his boyhood hero. Ouch for Desmond who is feeling his age.
Arthur is mortified when he finds out that everyone in the house … Grace, Catherine, Dickie, John and Violet … are aware that Ronnie has been sent home, but they were all scared to tell him. Violet is the one who breaks the news when he asks why she’s brought an extra glass for the celebration Madeira. He assumes she has brought it in the hope of being offered a glass. No, she’s brought it for Master Ronnie …
Arthur interviews Ronnie very sharply, and believes his innocence. Later then we realize he’s actually nothing of the stern unbending father at all. He also has to go from stern patriarch with a very slight limp, to bad limp, to wheelchair over the course of the two years. On costume, his later suit is crafted to make him look as if he has lost a lot of weight since the start. See the photo below.
There is a very good light relief comedy scene with the journalist from The Daily News at the start of the theatrical Act Two -here just a cut to different clothes shows the time lapse. It is nine months later. Miss Barnes (Gillian Martell) is supposed to interview him, but is far more interested in the curtain material. When Grace arrives she’s delighted to chat about them. (Rattigan always is a tad sexist!) The interview allows Arthur to describe the events of the previous nine months. Arthur and Ronnie are photographed for the ‘human interest’ story.
A scene with Catherine who has had an old dress remodelled points that money is running out. Dickie has had to leave Oxford too.
In every version, the runaway star is Sir Robert Morton, the cold ‘fish-like’ barrister. When you remember it from previous occasions, you’re waiting for his arrival. Alan Badel could not be bettered. This is a man of great importance and he knows it. The best barrister in the land, an MP. He checks his watch because this evening he is dining at Devonshire House with dukes and princes.
The scene where he does a cross-examination of Ronnie is in tight close-up and is masterly acting. As it comes across as such in every version, it’s masterly writing. Poor old Arthur is told off for interrupting Sir Robert, and Catherine is instructed to sit down.
After bringing Ronnie to tears, he calmly says ‘Send all this stuff round to my chambers …’ He will be taking the case. Jonathan Scott-Taylor as Ronnie gives a completely believable performance. The family rush to comfort him after the ordeal of the interrogation.
The sub-plot involves Catherine’s initial intense dislike of Sir Robert on political grounds (he is against Women’s Suffrage) and her realisation that he is in fact passionately committed to the Winslow cause.
Act three of the play starts with a newspaper boy and cuts to the House of Commons (merely the newspaper being read out on stage).
The House of Commons (with all the extras) has the First Lord speaking, and Sir Robert pretending to be asleep before making a theatrical exit.
Trouble is, as the case develops, the Winslows run so short of money that they even contemplate sacking Violet, the maid, as she has only been with them twenty-four years. John’s military dad is so aghast at the notoriety that he sends a letter to Catherine instructing them to drop their case against the Navy. Sir Robert is there reporting events in the House of Commons when she reads it. If they don’t withdraw the case, he will withdraw consent to the marriage, and John will lose the allowance.
Catherine: He says the name of Winslow has become a nationwide laughing stock.
Sir Robert: I don’t care for his English.
John arrives to accept and confirm their surrender. They ask to be alone and Arthur and Sir Robert retreat for whisky. In horror John says of the letter:
John: You think he’ll ignore it?
Catherine: Isn’t that the best way to answer blackmail?
John: Well, it was high-handed of the old man, I’ll admit.
She will not give in. Michelle Dotrice gives a powerful vision of an empowered woman. Sir Robert comes back in to discuss their next move, and is warming, even asking for a sandwich from the plate Violet had left for her and munching it. They must decide whether to continue.
Arthur: The decision is no longer mine. You must ask my daughter.
Sir Robert: What are my instructions, Miss Winslow?
Catherine: Do you need my instructions, Sir Robert? Aren’t they already on the petition? Doesn’t it say ‘Let right be done’?
All three turn to stare at John. John gasps, ‘Kate!’ Those are his marching orders. He leaves the room. Sir Robert calmly finishes his sandwich.
The theatrical Act IV comes here. June. Five months later. In this TV play we have an external view of the court with crowds to mark the shift, then Grace and Ronnie walk in and through the corridors. This sort of shot was much discussed when we were filming ELT videos. It adds nothing to stories or dialogue, and costs time and money, but directors will point out that they give an impression of quality and add ambience.
Catherine reports Sir Robert’s cross examination of the post mistress. She is warming to him.
Catherine: He was brilliant! He was so gentle, and quiet. He didn’t bully her or frighten her. He just coaxed her … into tying herself into knots.
I thought the play dragged a little in the last act, when they are forced to sit at home and wait for reports of the action. Arthur is now in a wheelchair.
The solicitor Desmond Curry tries to step in and offer Catherine his hand. Arthur advises her firmly against him.
Arthur: Better to live and die an old maid rather than marry Desmond.
Finally Violet arrives from the court to report the end of the case in happy tears, followed by Sir Robert. On Violet, as the maid she is cheerful and the centre of the family. Rattigan doesn’t go quite as far as Noel Coward’s inability to write working class conversation, but it’s still not quite natural. Ann Beach carries it off.
By this point, Sir Robert is becoming positively Oscar Wilde in his superior ‘Aren’t I clever?’ memorable lines. Arthur has to face the press.
Arthur: What shall I say?
Sir Robert: I don’t think it matters. Whatever you say will have very little bearing on what they write.
Arthur thinks of a line:
Arthur: I could say, this victory is not mine. It belongs to the people who have triumphed as they always will triumph over despotism. No, it’s a trifle pretentious, don’t you think?
Sir Robert: Perhaps. I should say it none the less. It will be very popular.
Sir Robert tentatively admires Catherine and relations warm to their final dialogue. She suggests if he sees her again it might be on the opposite side of the House of Commons. If it were a Mills & Boone (actually it’s not far off on the sub-plot here) they’d end up in warm embrace. They don’t. Rather like Arthur, Sir Robert warms up with time, belaying his stern legal stance.
It was an excellent cast, costumes and set. Alan Badel, Eric Porter and Michelle Dotrice were as good as it gets in the roles.
- TERENCE RATTIGAN PLAYS ON THIS BLOG:
After The Dance by Terence Rattigan, BBC TV play 1992
All On Her Own by Terence Rattigan, Kenneth Branagh Company 2015
Flare Path, by Terence Rattigan, 2015 Tour, at Salisbury Playhouse
Harlequinade by Terence Rattigan, Kenneth Branagh Company 2015
Ross by Terence Rattigan, Chichester Festival Theatre 2016
Separate Tables by Terence Rattigan, Salisbury Playhouse 2014
Separate Tables, by Terence Rattigan, BBC TV version 1970
While The Sun Shines by Terence Rattigan, Bath, 2016
French Without Tears, by Terence Rattigan, English Touring Theatre 2016
French Without Tears, by Terence Rattigan, BBC Play of The Month 1976
The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan (FILM VERSION)
The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan, Chichester Minerva, 2019
The Deep Blue Sea by Terence Rattigan, National 2016, NT Live 2020
The Winslow Boy, by Terence Rattigan, BBC Play of The Month, 1977
The Browning Version, by Terence Rattigan, BBC TV play 1985
LINKS:
ERIC PORTER
Separate Tables, by Terence Rattigan, BBC TV version 1970
DAVID ROBB
French Without Tears, by Terence Rattigan, BBC Play of The Month 1976
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