The White Carnation

Last updated

The White Carnation
Written by R.C. Sheriff
Date premiered5 January 1953
Place premiered Theatre Royal, Brighton
Original languageEnglish
GenreDrama

The White Carnation is a 1953 play by English playwright R. C. Sherriff. Its premiere production had a cast led by Ralph Richardson, but it was not revived until a 2013 Finborough Theatre production featuring Aden Gillett and Benjamin Whitrow. [1]

Contents

In 2014, the play was performed at the Jermyn Street Theatre [2]

Plot

John Greenwood says goodbye to the guests from his and his wife's Christmas Eve, but a gust of wind shuts the front door and leaves him locked out of his own house. He breaks a window to gain entry and finds the house ruined and deserted. A policeman questions him what he is doing in the house, all of whose inhabitants were killed by a V-1 flying bomb during a Christmas Eve party in 1944, but Greenwood indignantly insists that he is in his own house. A coroner and doctor are summoned and inform Greenwood that he was one of the inhabitants killed and that he has returned to the house as a ghost - and that is now 1951.

Greenwood is visited by Lydia Truscott, niece of the town clerk, who agrees to help him in his attempts at self-education and returning to the spirit-world. He also meets with a welcome from the local vicar Mr. Pendlebury and his next door neighbour Mrs. Carter, but also has to deal with the coroner and the Home Office, who are determined to move Greenwood out, knock the house down and build new flats on the site.

As the house's demolition begins, Greenwood finally vanishes and in a final scene re-runs his last Christmas Eve party, reconciling with his wife, whom during his haunting he had realised that he had emotionally ill-treated during his lifetime.

Critical reaction

Writing in The Sunday Times , the critic Harold Hobson called the original production of the play "extremely and touchingly human". [3] Of the revival Dominic Cavendish writing in the Telegraph observed, "what a neglected little treasure it proves: not life-changing, maybe, but life-affirming". [3] However, writing in The Guardian , Michael Billington called the play "passably entertaining, but much of its feels like quilted padding." [4]

1963 Australian TV version

The White Carnation
White Carnation.png
Advertisement from The Age 1 May 1963
Directed by Christopher Muir
Country of originAustralia
Original languageEnglish
Production
Running time60 mins [5]
Production company Australian Broadcasting Commission
Original release
Release1 May 1963 (1963-05-01) (Melbourne, live) [6]
Release29 May 1963 (1963-05-29) [7]

The play was adapted for Australian TV in 1963 directed by Christopher Muir. [8] Australian TV drama was relatively rare at the time. [9]

Plot

A group of ghosts gather to re-enact the time they were killed by a bomb.

Cast

Production

The set was designed by Kevin Bartlett. [10]

Chris Muir says while filming it the set caught fire. They kept filming it while the studio hands put out the fire with extinguishers before the sprinklers went on. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

Perchance to Dream is a musical romance with book, lyrics and music by Ivor Novello. It was the only musical for which Novello wrote lyrics. The title is a quotation from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The plot, like many of Novello's plots, is a romantic adventure tale, telling the parallel stories of the fates of several inhabitants of the same house through differing time periods. The stories interconnect and have unforeseen repercussions, one upon the other.

<i>Scrooge</i> (1951 film) 1951 film by Brian Desmond Hurst

Scrooge is a 1951 British Christmas fantasy drama film and an adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843). It stars Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge, and was produced and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst, with a screenplay by Noel Langley. It also features Michael Hordern, Kathleen Harrison, George Cole, Hermione Baddeley, Mervyn Johns, Clifford Mollison, Jack Warner, Ernest Thesiger and Patrick Macnee. Peter Bull narrates portions of Charles Dickens's words at the beginning and end of the film, and appears on-screen as a businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Williams (actor)</span> British actor

Simon Williams is a British actor known for playing James Bellamy in the period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. Frequently playing upper middle class or aristocratic upper class roles, he is also known for playing Charles Cartwright in the sitcom Don't Wait Up and Charles Merrick in medical drama Holby City. Since 2014, he has played the character of Justin Elliott in the long-running BBC Radio 4 series The Archers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jermyn Street Theatre</span> Theatre in London, England

Jermyn Street Theatre is a performance venue situated on Jermyn Street, in London's West End. It is an Off West End studio theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finborough Theatre</span> Theatre in London

The Finborough Theatre is a fifty-seat theatre in the West Brompton area of London under artistic director Neil McPherson. The theatre presents new British writing, as well as UK and world premieres of new plays primarily from the English speaking world including North America, Canada, Ireland, and Scotland including work in the Scots language, alongside rarely seen rediscovered 19th and 20th century plays. The venue also presents new and rediscovered music theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Coote</span> British actor (1909–1982)

Robert Coote was an English actor. He played aristocrats or British military types in many films, and created the role of Colonel Hugh Pickering in the long-running original Broadway production of My Fair Lady.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Kay</span> English actor (1928–2014)

Bernard Frederic Bemrose Kay was an English actor with an extensive theatre, television, and film repertoire.

Phil Willmott is a British director, playwright, arts journalist, teacher, and founder of London based theatre production company The Steam Industry.

Greg Hicks is an English actor. He completed theatrical training at Rose Bruford College and joined The Royal Shakespeare Company in 1976. He was nominated for a 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in the category "Best Actor of 2003" for his performance in Coriolanus at the Old Vic and was awarded the 2003 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards (Drama) for Best Shakespearian Performance in the same role.

Primavera Productions is a professional theatre company founded in 2003 by Tom Littler, who is also the Artistic Director. It is based in London, UK.

Adaptations of <i>A Christmas Carol</i> Works based on Charles Dickenss 1843 novella

A Christmas Carol, the 1843 novella by Charles Dickens (1812–1870), is one of the English author's best-known works. It is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a greedy miser who hates Christmas but who is transformed into a caring, kindly person through the visitations of four ghosts. The classic work has been dramatised and adapted countless times for virtually every medium and performance genre, and new versions appear regularly.

Magnificence is a 1973 play by English playwright Howard Brenton. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre and was next performed on the London stage in 2016, at the Finborough Theatre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White Bear Theatre</span> Pub theatre in London, England

The White Bear Theatre is a fringe theatre founded in 1988 at the White Bear pub in Kennington, London, and run by Artistic Director and founder Michael Kingsbury. It is one of London's leading pub theatres, as well as one of the longest established, dedicated since inception to both new writing and to its Lost Classics Project, which focuses on productions of obscure historical works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Henry</span>

Stephen Henry is a British stage director, a theatre producer, and an educator.

Michael Benz is an English-American actor.

John Sackville is an English actor, best known for his role as the villainous Robert Frobisher Smythe in the British-American TV series House of Anubis, in which he co-starred with Alexandra Shipp He has worked in theatre, film and television.

Stewart Nicholls is a British stage director and choreographer. His credits include productions of: A Spoonful of Sherman, Bumblescratch, Bar Mitzvah Boy, Love Birds, Free As Air, Business As Usual, Jewish Legends, Salad Days and The Biograph Girl, Lunch With Marlene, Beatlemania, Gay's The Word, Over My Shoulder, South Pacific, and Carousel and Tim Rice's revival of Blondel. Choreography credits include: Iolanthe and The Mikado and Cowardy Custard. He has also directed productions in drama schools and staged numerous pantomimes.

Christopher Muir was an Australian director and producer, notable for his work in TV in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1980s he was head of ABC Television drama.

<i>The Right to Be Happy</i> 1916 film

The Right to Be Happy is an American silent film from 1916 that draws inspiration from Charles Dickens' 1843 Novella, A Christmas Carol. This film was Universal's first attempt at making a Feature film based on Dickens' novella. Throughout the silent era, it stood as the first and only feature film adaptation of A Christmas Carol by an American or foreign film company. The movie was directed by Rupert Julian and supported by a cast of Universal Bluebird players, including Rupert Julian, Claire McDowell, and Harry Carter.

Emily Barber is an English stage, television and film actress having had roles in Endeavour and The Royals (2018), Call The Midwife and Backdraft 2 (2019), The Alienist (2020), and Bridgerton in 2022.

References

  1. "The White Carnation - 2013". Finborough Theatre. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
  2. "What's On - Jermyn Street TheatreJermyn Street Theatre". Jermynstreettheatre.co.uk. 7 September 2016. Retrieved 17 November 2016.
  3. 1 2 "The White Carnation". Finborough Theatre. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  4. Billington, Michael (29 November 2013). "The White Carnation - review". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  5. "TV Guide". Sydney Morning Herald. 27 May 1963. p. 15.
  6. "Untitled". The Age. 25 April 1963. p. 19.
  7. "Ghost Theme for Play". Sydney Morning Herald. 20 May 1963. p. 11.
  8. The White Carnation at IMDb
  9. Vagg, Stephen (18 February 2019). "60 Australian TV Plays of the 1950s & '60s". Filmink.
  10. "TV Guide". The Age. 25 April 1963. p. 27.
  11. Day, Christopher (1981). "TV Drama". In Peter Beilby (ed.). Australian TV: The First 25 Years. Thomas Nelson. p. 138.