To Have the Honour - A A Milne

 You see the name A A Milne, you think Pooh, you perhaps think Toad of Toad Hall.   You almost certainly don't think witty grown-up West End comedies, yet it was as a playwright that Milne made his name and, no doubt, much of his money.

To Have the Honour was premiered at Wyndham's in the autumn of 1924, produced by and starring Sir Gerald du Maurier,, manager of Wyndham's and father of Daphne.   Du Maurier, in his fiftieth year, plays a matinee idol Balkan prince who finds himself a weekend guest in English surbubia and who turns out to be not or who he seems to be.

The plot is paper-thin but that doesn't matter.   This is a comedy of manners and, most interestingly, an exploration of assumed identity, the face we put on to both impress our peers and to cover own insecurities.

Angela Battersby has met Prince Michael in Monte Carlo, as you do, and has invited him to drop in at her father's house in leafy Wych Trentham if he happens to be in the area.    So he does.  Angela hurriedly scrapes together a dinner party of friends she thinks will be impressed.   But one of them recognises the imposter.   This moment, the exact midpoint of the play, is a total reversal of our expectations.   Far from exposing the fraud, the one in the know turns out to be another fraud and together they plot their way out of the situation.   They also turn out to be married to one another, a plot twist that should be preposterous and yet, with Milne's exquisite touch, seems unremarkable.

JenniferBulger, the wife the fake prince deserted, is content with her life as a non-existant general's widow in Wych Trentham, so Prince Michael - plain Michael Brown - has to make his excuses and leave.  He doesn't want to - he wants to be with Jennifer again - and so builds another fake story to explain the first.   It unravels in Act Three but still contrives to end happily.

Could To Have the Honour be successfully revived today?  I think so.   The issues - outward show, royalty in the modern monarchy, even a hint of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - are all relevant, and Milne is not as mannered as Coward.   In its way it is of-its-time as a Restoration Comedy and could be revived simply as an excellent period piece.

Shadowplay - Joseph O'Connor

 

Modern fiction at its very best, Shadowplay is the story of the triumvirate that brought London's Lyceum Theatre its greatest days at the very end of the 19th century - Sir Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Bram Stoker, their general manager, who knocked off his best-known novel in his spare time.  One theory maintains that Count Dracula was based on Irving, so the vampire theme lies across O'Connor's story.  There are also fun jokes - for example, Jonathan Harker, the young scenic whizz hired by Stoker, turns out to be a cross-dressing young woman, thereafter known as 'Harks'.  Mina is the name given to the theatre ghost and some of the best writing here is about the ephemeral jaunts of the long-dead spirit.  Mina's room is the abandoned space inside the theatre where Stoker does his writing.  This being the 1880s, for the most part, Jack the Ripper is here too.  But at heart it's a three-handed love story; for all their wildly inappropriate behaviour the three principals are all emotionally tied to one another for life.  O'Connor brings their world beautifully alive.  He is a major contemporary writer.  As a token of how good he is, I draw your attention to the end Coda - totally unnecessary, far too long, and yet so achingly written I wouldn't want to lose a single word.