The Deep Blue Sea, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury (prior to West End)

Article by: Caroline Plaisted, Ink Pellet

Set in post-War London, Terence Rattigan’s play tackles a day in the entwined lives of lodgers in a boarding house run by Mrs Elton (Jacqueline Tong). Strangers at dawn, all members of the house, save for Mr Elton who is oft spoken of but never seen, the neighbours know perhaps more about each other as well as themselves by sunset. Greta Scacchi brilliantly plays Hester Collyer, a bored housewife and would-be artist who left her husband (played by Simon Williams) for a WWII flying ace, only to discover that whilst she once at least had a social life with her husband as well as his love (even if she’d failed to want it), she is now the golf-widow of a young man (Dugald Bruce-Lockhart) unable to cope with the boredom of life without a cock-pit in front of it and the Luftwaffe behind it. This is a tragic and moving story, excellently portrayed and highly recommended. As Rattigan said himself, “The phenomenon of love is inexplicable in term of logic. That was the theme of The Deep Blue Sea.”