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In Praise of Love

24th March 2010 to 27th March 2010

Library Theatre

Start Time: 7:30pm

New Venture Players present "In Praise of Love" by Terence Rattigan.

Is love more important than truth? Is it ever right to lie to a loved one? Can it, in some circumstances, be vital?

Terrence Rattigan, one of Britain's finest playwrights, wrote "In Praise of Love" during the last years of his life but it proved that he had lost none of his theatrical powers.

The play is set in the late Seventies. At the end of the last war, Sebastian Crutwell was an Intelligence Officer in the British Army. He met Lydia, a girl from Estonia, and he brought her back to England as his wife. It began as a marriage of convenience. It was a way for Lydia to obtain a British passport and to take her from the life she was leading to a better one, albeit in a foreign country. Now, some thirty years later, they are still married and have a son, Joey.

On the face of it, it would appear to be the archetypal love story. Man meets woman, man marries woman and they live happily ever after.

But Sebastian is the type of man who is totally bound-up in himself and seems only to be interested in his work. He runs rough-shod over his wife, he is at odds with his son and he barely tolerates their friend Mark, who has been in love with Lydia for years.

And Lydia has a dark secret, a secret which if revealed, will change all of their lives forever.