Separate Tables is the collective name of two one-act plays by Terence Rattigan, both taking place in the Beauregard Private Hotel, Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. The first play, titled Table by the Window, focuses on the troubled relationship between a disgraced Labour politician and his ex-wife. The second play, Table Number Seven, is set about 18 months after the events of the previous play, and deals with the touching friendship between a repressed spinster and Major Pollock, a kindly but bogus man posing as an upper-class retired army officer. The two main roles in both plays are written to be played by the same performers. The secondary characters – permanent residents, the hotel's manager, and members of the staff – appear in both plays.
Dame Dorothy Tutin was an English actress of stage, film and television. For her work in the theatre, she won two Olivier Awards and two Evening Standard Awards for Best Actress. She was made a CBE in 1967 and a Dame (DBE) in 2000.
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background. He wrote The Winslow Boy (1946), The Browning Version (1948), The Deep Blue Sea (1952) and Separate Tables (1954), among many others.
Sir Arthur John Gielgud was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the trinity of actors who dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. A member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty, he gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31.
Mary Ellis was an American actress and singer who spent most of her career in Britain. Trained as a lyric soprano, she began performing at the Metropolitan Opera where she created the role of Genovieffa in the world premiere of Giacomo Puccini's Suor Angelica in 1918. In 1924 she originated the title role in Rudolf Friml's operetta Rose-Marie at Broadway's Imperial Theatre. Other Broadway parts included Shakespeare roles such as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.
Peter John Bowles was an English screen and stage actor. He gained prominence for television dramas such as Callan: A Magnum for Schneider and I, Claudius. He is best remembered for his roles in sitcoms and television comedy dramas, including: Rumpole of the Bailey, Only When I Laugh, To the Manor Born, The Bounder, The Irish R.M., Lytton's Diary, Executive Stress and Perfect Scoundrels.
Dinah Sheridan was an English actress with a career spanning seven decades. She was best known for the films Genevieve (1953) and The Railway Children (1970), the long-running BBC comedy series Don't Wait Up (1983–1990), and for her distinguished theatre career in London's West End.
Max Adrian was an Irish stage, film and television actor and singer. He was a founding member of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.
Benjamin Arthur Flemyng, known professionally as Robert Flemyng, was a British actor. The son of a doctor, and originally intended for a medical career, Flemyng learned his stagecraft in provincial repertory theatre. In 1935 he appeared in a leading role in the West End, and the following year had his first major success, in Terence Rattigan's comedy French Without Tears. Between then and the Second World War he appeared in London and New York in a succession of comedies.
Terence Christopher Gerald Rigby was an English actor with a number of film and television credits to his name. In the 1970s he was well known as police dog-handler PC Snow in the long-running series Softly, Softly: Task Force.
The Phoenix Theatre is a West End theatre in the London Borough of Camden, located in Charing Cross Road. The entrances are on Phoenix Street and Charing Cross Road. The Phoenix Theatre was built on the site of a former factory and then music hall Alcazar before.
The Browning Version is a 1951 British drama film based on the 1948 play of the same name by Terence Rattigan. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and starred Michael Redgrave. In 1994, the play was filmed again with Albert Finney in the lead.
Barbara Mary Jefford, OBE was a British actress, best known for her theatrical performances with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Old Vic and the National Theatre and her role as Molly Bloom in the 1967 film of James Joyce's Ulysses.
The Browning Version is a 1994 British drama film directed by Mike Figgis, written by Ronald Harwood, and starring Albert Finney, Greta Scacchi, and Matthew Modine. The film is based on the 1948 stage play of the same name by Terence Rattigan, which was previously adapted for film under the same name in 1951.
Thea Sharrock is an English theatre and film director. In 2001, at age 24, she became the artistic director of London's Southwark Playhouse and the youngest artistic director in British theatre.
Harlequinade is a comic play by Terence Rattigan.
Robin Midgley was a director in theatre, television and radio and responsible for some of the earliest episodes of Z-Cars and for the television version of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Wars of the Roses.
South Downs is a 2011 play by the British playwright and author David Hare. It is set in 1962 in a public school, similar to Hare's own school, Lancing, in the South Downs. It is a response to Terence Rattigan's 1948 play The Browning Version and was commissioned by Rattigan's estate to mark Rattigan's Centenary.
In Praise of Love, originally entitled After Lydia, is the first part of a 1973 double-bill play by the English playwright Terence Rattigan. It was the penultimate play he wrote.
Peter Martyn was a British actor and TV presenter. He hosted the UK version of the U.S. game show The Name's the Same in 1954, and the game show Find the Link in 1954-55.
