A Touch of the Sun

By Robert Iles - 6th Jul 2006

N.C.Hunter's "A Touch of the Sun" was first performed in 1958 with a cast that included Michael Redgrave with his daughter Vanessa and Diana Wynyard. It is a sad but effective piece looking at changing social attitudes in the late 50's as we moved from lives of austerity to the pursuit and praise of glamour. Philip Lester is a dedicated teacher in a small private school for the less than gifted - he takes his job seriously and he and his family live by his beliefs of self-sacrifice and service. The school dominates his life, his cantankerous father has to live with them and they have little money for himself or his children. Mary, his wife, was brought up and educated to a better life but seems to accept her role as mother and carer, despite it wearing her down. Into this stroles Philip's brother who has just married a rich American (Margaret) and taken to a life in the pursuit of the trivial, in being friendly Margaret invites the family to her Cannes Villa for a holiday and (with the help of a loan from his brother) Philip says yes. Of course, it is a disaster. Mary and the kids adore the life and Philip abhors it and feels that his kids are being corrupted. In the end they come home early. Mary later announces she has been seing one of the house guests from the villa ut that its over and she wants to stay - Brief Encounter meets Mr Chips!

This is a very 1950s play in tone, dialogue and structure but that is not a bad thing. It invokes the period so well and helps us to understand (or remember) how traumatic and hard to comprehend were the changes of those times when all that adults knew to be true was thrown into doubt. Of course, it was written as a contemporary piece not as a look at the past but perhaps that is why it captures the 50's middle classes so well.

Jamie Newall and Paula Stockbridge as Philip and Mary were superb; they brought a quiet reality to these characters that enabled us to trully feel the cnfusion and pain they were going through - without these two parts being so strongly played I doubt the production of this piece would work well with a modern audience at all. A lovely evening of theatre.