The Rattigan Version
Terence Rattigan ( (10 June 1911 – 30 November 1977) was a reactionary and the sort of gay who (judging by his work) hates women: but when it came to repressed middle class despair, nobody did it better (especially with Michael Redgrave in the lead, making the role intedend for Gielgud, his own):
BBC Radio 4 is celebrating his centennial in good style.
Rosie said,
June 13, 2011 at 7:04 am
Rattigan hated women? The suffragette heroine of The Winslow Boy for instance? He has a gallery of sympathetic women – outspoken and put upon. The wife in The Browning Version is a horrible bitch, but there do exist women who are horrible bitches.
Jim Denham said,
June 18, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Rosie: you are right! I take it all back! I’ve just heard Radio 4′s version of ‘In Praise of Love’ and am still wiping away the tears. No-one who could create such an incredibly powerful, tragic and sympathetic female charcter can have hated women.
Here are the details of the Radio 4 production: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zklh
Sadly it’s not available on PlayitagainSam for some reason that seems to be to do with the Beeb having brought this production from Martin Jarvis’s commercial company. A great pity.
Rosie said,
June 18, 2011 at 3:59 pm
I heard of In Praise of Love years ago and thought it was a great play about marriage. I’ve been out this afternoon, so missed it and I’m annoyed with La Beeb for not letting me listen to it. Licence fee, mutter.
Sarah AB said,
June 19, 2011 at 6:55 am
I only know TBV and TWB but very much like those. Is it quite fair to say ‘the sort of gay who hates women’ (independent of whether TR liked women or not) given that lots of straight men give clear indications of hating or at least despising women yet you wouldn’t get a reference to ‘the sort of heterosexual man who hates women’.
Sarah AB said,
June 19, 2011 at 6:59 am
[Sorry, 'lots' was probably a bit strong. And obviously plenty of women don't seem to like men either, I should add]
Rosie said,
June 19, 2011 at 8:42 am
I think you would say “a woman-hater” or “misogynist”, heterosexual being the default setting. There is a kind of homosexual who hates women – Tom Driberg seems to have been an example of that. I think it was Gore Vidal who said that homosexual writers were better at portraying women as they regarded them as individual people rather than objects of desire and fantasy. He was thinking of Tennessee Williams, but the same would go for Henry James. HJ especially produced a gallery of interesting women.
Jim Denham said,
June 25, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Rosie: I’ve already admitted you’re right about Rattigan and women. Today’s BBC 4 Afternoon Paly, ‘Cause Celebre’ merely confirmed how right you are, and wrong I was.
‘Cause Celebre’ is another masterpiece with a wonderful female lead character. A courtroom drama based, I understand, upon a real case.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0122lz6
Once again, infuriatingly, it cannot be listened to again…
Rosie said,
June 26, 2011 at 10:23 am
This non-listening again is ****** annoying. I was out yesterday and had planned to listen to it at some point. It’s a Rattigan I’ve not heard/seen.