William Douglas Home’s comedy began at Windsor as long ago as 1965. It then went into the West End with David Tomlinson and Elizabeth Sellers as its star. It was subsequently televised. And now here it is again, at the Shaftesbury. Ray Cooney’s Theatre of Comedy must clearly regard it as a classic but the critics seem to have thought otherwise.
Perhaps the critics have got Home all wrong. Reviewing his new play at Farnham (David and Jonathan), Harold Hobson protested that a critical injustice is done to Home by those who fail to see the seriousness which underlies the surface urbanity of a dramatist whom Hobson calls a ‘sparkling wit’. I have not seen David and Jonathan, but I have seen A Friend Indeed. While some of the acting is poor, the production as a whole is efficient and well-drilled, and Derek Nimmo and Geoffrey Palmer give pleasure by their performances. But the play is neither sparkling nor witty, and I cannot believe that it merits its revival.
British Airways have sponsored it. While we are supposed to be in an apartment in Rome, we might just as well be in one of the world’s homogenised airport lounges, for all the sense there is that we are anywhere at all. The apartment is so brightly lit that it not only offends against reality but makes the eyes ache into the bargain. The crudely painted backdrop of the Roman skyline has little bumps in the azure section where, when it gets dark in Act II, little stars glow. But it is not simply a matter of the set. Surely drawing-room comedies about eccentric upper-class people, who have comic maids and French windows without any glass, must have seemed dated in 1965? The play has no connection with real people, real places or real time. And the director, Jan Butlin, has not even attempted to give it period charm, by pointing up its location in the era of the Beatles and the prominence of the dramatist’s brother.
The plot is handled almost negligently: its surprises are sprung early on, the audience is provided with enough information to give it all the authority of dramatic irony, and from then on we are merely allowed to observe the characters play through the predictable ritual of learning the truths necessary to a conventional happy ending. And yet, it has to be admitted that, by the second half, the play is beginning to work. Nimmo and Palmer’s comic timing has something to do with it, but the source of what minimal strength the play possesses lies in the powerful issues it invokes. For want of suspense, surprise, characterisation or witty dialogue, we are left with the remote frisson of a tentative exposure to two topics — lies and incest.
Nimmo and Palmer play two old friends with successful careers in the Foreign Office. Sir Lionel (Nimmo) is Permanent Head of the F.O., while Sir John (Palmer), who is acting as Sir Lionel’s host in Rome, is British Minister to the Vatican. Being diplomats the Knights are professional liars (the programme quotes an earlier Knight, Henry Wotton, who lost his job at the court of King James I because of his remark that ‘An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country’). And in their private lives they have been lying, ever since the cold winter when Sir John slept with Sir Lionel’s wife in London, while Sir Lionel slept with an American actress called Rosie Butterfield in Washington. Now, in the hot summer of 1963, the daughter Sir Lionel has always believed to be his own has fallen in love with young Bobby Butterfield, and he panics at the thought of incest. Most of our attention is directed at observing Sir John plucking up the courage to tell Sir Lionel the truth that will defuse the threat. When he finally manages, Sir Lionel is simply relieved and, bearing no grudge, exclaims warmly, ‘Oh my dear old friend!’ Curtain. So, in fact, the play is not about the serious issues of lies or incest but, instead, the equally serious issue of friendship. Indeed, it is about male friendship, like David and Jonathan (although there the subject is explicit homosexuality). But glancing at serious issues is not the same as being serious about them. Even though Nimmo and Palmer establish a convincing familiarity and affection for each other, Home’s presentation of friendship is as perfunctory as his treatment of wives and young lovers.
As for the interesting possibilities of the idea of lying diplomats - they are like actors in that they wear funny costumes and play parts, they betray their friends, they are forced eventually to tell the truth and lack the skills for such a task - these are abandoned, like the threat of incest, as soon as they are glimpsed.
The most remarkable thing in the whole evening is the amount of alcohol that gets consumed. Sir Lionel’s wife was drunk all those years ago when Sir John had his way with her. She (Colette Gleeson) and Rosie Butterfield (Moira Lister) are strega-saturated when they tell each other about their children’s fathers. Sir Lionel drinks steadily to cope with his fear of incest, and Sir John needs a great deal of dutch courage before telling his friend how groundless that fear is. The effect is an atmosphere of bland, muzzy geniality - accurate, no doubt, to ambassadorial life, ideal for passengers on British Airways, but not the stuff of a classic.
Thanks to Maree Wilson for sending this article which appeared in the August, 1984 edition of Plays (UK).