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3 unusual facts about Terence Rattigan


Cram school

Terence Rattigan's 1936 play French Without Tears is set in a language crammer typical of the period.

David Conrad

Continuing with his stage career, Conrad made his Broadway debut as Blythe Danner's much younger lover in a revival of Terence Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea in 1998.

Postal Order

George Archer-Shee, whose alleged cashing of a Postal Order to a fellow naval cadet led to a long-running court case and inspired Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy.


Eton v Harrow

Lord Byron played for Harrow in the 1805 match, Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis for Harrow in Fowler's match in 1910, Bolo Whistler for Harrow in 1916, Alec Douglas-Home for Eton in 1921 and 1922, Terence Rattigan for Harrow in 1929 and Henry Blofeld for Eton in 1955.

Googie Withers

Withers starred in a number of stage plays, including Rattigan's The Deep Blue Sea, Desire of the Moth, The First 400 Years (with Keith Michell), Beekman Place (for which she also designed the set), The Kingfisher, Stardust, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and Wilde's An Ideal Husband for the Melbourne Theatre Company; both productions toured Australia.

Leslie Dwyer

He played Sergeant Dusty Miller in the original 1942 production of Terence Rattigan's play Flare Path.

Postal orders of the United Kingdom

The 1946 play The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan, and the two subsequent films based on it, features the story of a schoolboy trying to clear his name over the theft of a five shilling postal order.

Robert Browning

In The Browning Version (Terence Rattigan's 1948 play or one of several film adaptations), a pupil makes a parting present to his teacher of an inscribed copy of Robert Browning's translation of The Agamemnon of Aeschylus.

Simon and Laura

At the same time, husband-and-wife team John McCallum and Googie Withers toured it with great success in Australia, playing it in repertory with the Terence Rattigan drama The Deep Blue Sea.


see also

Robin Witt

Witt's notable productions include Enda Walsh's The New Electric Ballroom at A Red Orchid Theatre, Dennis Kelly's Love and Money, Simon Stephens' Motortown, Pornography and Harper Regan at Steep Theatre, as well as Terence Rattigan's Flare Path (2013 Jeff Nominations, Director and Production) and Edna Ferber and George Kaufman's Stage Door (2011 Jeff Nominations, Director and Production) with the Griffin Theatre.

Rodney M. Bennett

Through the 1980s he freelanced for BBC, in particular on the BBC World Service, and published a book "The Archer-Shees Against the Admiralty" which was a factual account of the Archer-Shee case upon which Terence Rattigan based his play The Winslow Boy.