Christopher Gray talks to Tom Littler on bringing a drama about Oxford students back to the city

Terence Rattigan, who is justly regarded as one of Britain’s finest 20th-century playwrights, practised his craft while still a student in Oxford. First Episode, the play he wrote in 1933 in collaboration with a pal called Philip Heimann, was a success in the West End and on Broadway but has never been seen in the place of its creation — until now.

That this is a pretty amazing state of affairs is certainly not lost on director Tom Littler, whose Primavera production company is bringing the play to the theatre at his old Oxford college tomorrow night and Saturday, following a well-received run in London.

Its non-appearance in Oxford until now is the more astonishing since its subject matter is peculiarly Oxonian, concerned with a play being put on by Oxford students and, as such, firmly based in fact.

Tom, whose own career as a producer began as a student at Lady Margaret Hall, takes up the tale . . .

“During Rattigan’s second year at Trinity College, John Gielgud was asked to direct a production of Romeo and Juliet by the OUDS president George Devine, who later founded the English Stage Company at the Royal Court. The experimental work there, of course, was to be the exact opposite of the kind of polished, conventional plays for which Rattigan became known.

“At the time it was not unusual for professional actresses to be recruited for OUDS productions at the New Theatre, and Gielgud invited Peggy Ashcroft to play Juliet and Edith Evans to play her nurse [dream casting, many might think]. Rattigan himself was the First Musician whose one line, ‘Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone’, always convulsed the audience.

“The presence of these celebrities was fascinating to the students, and especially to George Devine, who played Mercutio, and was rumoured to have had an affair with Peggy Ashcroft.

“This relationship supplied the inspiration for First Episode, in which a visiting actress of 35 called Margot Gresham — played for us by Caroline Langrishe — has an affair with student director Tony, who is played by Gavin Fowler.

“As if this mismatch in age was not enough, the play has a further element designed to shock in those days, with Tony apparently in some sort of sexual relationship with his best friend David, played by Philip Labey. Margot calls David ‘degenerate’ when she rows with him and accuses him of coming between her and Tony.” All this helps explain why the play was given no airing in Oxford — and, indeed, why the Proctors even forbade Cherwell, the student newspaper, from carrying a review of the London produc-tion. Tom says: “There is also a pretty risqué bedroom scene between David and a young actress called Joan [played by newcomer Molly Hanson, the daughter of Samantha ‘Miss Moneypenny’ Bond].

“You could get away with this in those days by making sure they stayed on opposite sides of the bedclothes. In our production they don’t.”

In an an enthusiastic review in the Guardian, after the production’s opening at the Jermyn Street Theatre, Michael Billington said the play painted “a fascinating picture of a vanished student world” and proved Rattigan to be, even at 22, “a born dramatist”.

First Episode
Simpkins Lee Theatre, Lady Margaret Hall
Tomorrow (7.30pm) and Saturday (2pm and 7pm)
Tickets: oxfordplayhouse.com