In Praise of Love

The Orange Tree has become somehing of a home for the frothier works of Terence Rattigan of late, having scored hits with revivals of French without Tears and While the Sun Shines – big hits in their day, but rarely revived by a UK theatre establishment that now prefers Rattigan’s more melancholic work. Now it’s trying something a little different with In Praise of Love, Rattigan’s penultimate play. Rarely revived – in part because it was specifically written for and about the actor Rex Harrison regarding his relationship with his wife Kay Kendall – Rattigan’s play fictionalises them as literary critic Sebastian and his Estonian actress wife Lydia. The drama sees each other them use the skills of deception they developed in the war to try and protect the other from the knowledge that Lydia is terminally ill. Amelia Sears directs a cast of Daniel Abelson, Joe Edgar, Claire Price and Dominic Rowan in this ultra rare chance to see the play in the twenty-first century.