Penelope Goddard Derek Hyder Vanessa Turner Kelvin West

The action of this production is set in 1950's Bournemouth, in the (thankfully) fictional Beauregard Private Hotel, somewhere just behind the East Cliff. Terence Rattigan's renowned drama rips open the lives, desires and loneliness of the Hotel's long-term residents. They are mostly retired gentlefolk clearly confused by the (then) new Welfare State. and leading what appear to be boring lives. Their major interests revolve around what's on the single TV channel and gossiping about any short-term hotel guests. In two separate one-act plays we see how the same set of residents react, first to new sophisticated visitors and later to the lurid misbehaviour of one of their long-term fellow residents. The play is directed by Tony Orman, who says he has always had a soft spot for Rattigan, as his first role with an adult company was as a teenager, when he played the 'Boy' in Rattigan's "Winslow Boy". He later appeared in the same play in Bermuda, the home of Terence Rattigan, who was then a dying man. The play, being performed by amateurs, was directed as a favour, by the movie director, Harold French, an old friend of the author, who had directed Rattigan's first West End success, "French Without Tears", way back in 1935.