While the Sun Shines (play)

Programme for the original production at the Globe

While the Sun Shines is a comedy play by the British writer Terence Rattigan which was first staged in 1943. It was a popular success, running for 1,154 performances, even more than Rattigan's previous hit French Without Tears, and proved his longest running West End play.^[1][2] A Broadway production followed in 1944, though it ran for only 39 performances.^[3]

Synopsis[]

The action takes place over three acts in an apartment at Albany^{[disambiguation needed]} where the wealthy Earl of Harpenden, serving in wartime as an ordinary seaman, is about to marry his long-standing fiancée. Complications are caused by the arrival of two rival suitors an American airman and a Free French officer, Harpenden's prospective father-in-law and an old girlfriend.

Original cast[]

The cast of the Globe Theatre production included Douglas Jefferies, Robert Long, Hugh McDermott, Jane Baxter, Ronald Squire, Eugene Deckers and Brenda Bruce.^[4]

Critical reception[]

James Agate thought it “delightful, a little masterpiece of tingling impertinence”.^[5] and on Broadway, the New York Herald Tribune found "A gay drawing-room comedy has come romping to the rescue of the faltering season."^[6]

Adaptation[]

In 1947 the play was turned into a film of the same title directed by Anthony Asquith, a frequent collaborator with Rattigan on various film projects.^[7]

References[]

Bibliography[]

• John Russell Taylor. The Rise and Fall of the Well-Made Play. Routledge, 2013.

External links[]

• While the Sun Shines at the Internet Broadway Database

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