A fine roll call of actors have played the central parts of overbearing father and obedient son in John Mortimer’s autobiographical drama, including Alec Guinness opposite Jeremy Brett and Laurence Olivier opposite Alan Bates. In Richard Eyre’s production, Rupert Everett is the patrician parent, appraised by Jack Bardoe with love but not sentiment in this memory play and coming-of-age story in one.
It begins in the 1920s, when the unnamed father bangs his head and goes blind, and it spans his career as a divorce barrister, aided by his loyally serving wife (Eleanor David) to his decline into old age and death. Bardoe plays the son in youth and adulthood. After being packed off to boarding school, he shelves his ambitions to become a writer in order to follow his father into the law and then settles into middle-class married life with his wife (Allegra Marland).
