Director James Dacre presents these two short dramas by Terence Rattigan under the banner title Summer 1954, the date when the action is set. Table Number Seven takes place in a Bournemouth boarding house inhabited by long-term residents whose incomes no longer cover the expenses of running their own homes. The action of The Browning Version (twice reworked into film – in 1951 with Michael Redgrave and in 1994 with Albert Finney and Greta Scacchi) takes place in the private rooms of a soon-to-retire classics teacher in a public school in the south of England.
Dacre cleverly sets both plays on a revolve stage, shifting our viewpoints and creating a physical exteriorisation of the drama’s interior dynamics. Mike Britton’s period design opens up to us the spaces inhabited by the characters as they react to events that cause them to question their perspectives – social, moral, emotional. Presentation and performance, from a well-balanced ensemble, wind us into the dramas.
