Born in London in 1911 and educated at Oxford, Terence Rattigan was at one time Britain’s most commercially successful playwright. Although the changes which took place on the British stage during the middle of the century overshadowed Rattigan’s relatively conventional work, it is currently felt that his plays’ traditionalism of form hid an original voice and an intricate understanding of the forces which shape human interaction.

The Browning Version was first performed in 1948 and is widely considered to be one of Rattigan’s most successful examinations of loneliness and emotional failure. Its study of social masks, the importance of truth and the difficulties of forging genuine relationships provides ample support for the claim that Rattigan’s plays "take a comparatively small corner of human weakness and persuade us to experience it truthfully and poignantly. They don’t attempt more and they don’t achieve less."

Terence Rattigan died in 1977.

[supporting material from Contemporary Dramatists]

First staged in 1948, The Browning Version tells the story of an hour in the life of Andrew Crocker-Harris, an academically gifted Public School Master who has been forced to take a considerable step down his 'career ladder' and retire from his post. As the preparations for his and his wife's imminent departure come to a head, the audience learns that his has been a bitter, harsh life, full of disappointments and shattered illusions. But will a simple gift from one of his pupils be enough to prove to him that not all his efforts have been in vain?

Potentially extremely powerful, moving and memorable, The Browning Version has a cast of seven (two female roles; five male) and is to be staged at the Crwys Theatre from Wednesday the 25th to Saturday the 28th February 1998.