Flare Path is a radio adaptation of the stage play by Terence Rattigan. Originally written in 1941, the radio version was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 05 June 2011. It was the first installment of a season of Rattigan plays adapted for radio, to commemorate the centenary of the playwright's birth[1]. Actor Rory Kinnear was nominated for the 2011 BBC Audio Drama Awards in the category of Best Actor for his performance as Teddy Graham. For the role of Peter Kyle, Rupert Penry Jones was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
Plot[]
Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star.
Cast[]
- Peter Kyle ..... Rupert Penry Jones
- Patricia Graham ..... Ruth Wilson
- Teddy Graham ..... Rory Kinnear
- Doris Skriczevinsky ..... Monica Dolan
- Mrs Oakes ..... Una Stubbs
- Count Skriczevinsky ..... Tom Goodman-Hill
- Dusty Miller ..... Justin Salinger
- Swanson ..... Julian Wadham
- Percy ..... David Hartley
- Maudie Miller ..... Kelly Shirley
- Executive Producer - Catherine Bailey
- Directed by Jeremy Herrin for Catherine Bailey Ltd.
Critical Reception[]
"Jeremy Herrin's direction captured the play's warmth and understanding of these variously strained lives unfolding in the unique context of war. Rattigan doesn't pass judgment on his characters, even Patricia (Ruth Wilson) and her lover, Hollywood actor Peter (Rupert Penry-Jones), who intend to declare their feelings to her RAF pilot husband Teddy (Rory Kinnear) and leave. Instead of judging, Rattigan quietly tilts his characters away from that seeming possible.
The excellent ensemble cast relished the collision of closed worlds – the movies (everyone asks Peter if he knows any famous names) and the RAF, with its slang and lingo – where everyone, to an extent, is acting. There were terrifically moving moments, such as Penry-Jones reading a letter from a husband who is presumed dead to his wife (Doris, superbly played by Monica Dolan), but mostly just a sense of characters stoically adjusting to realities, written in cracking, sharp lines that always feel true." - Elisabeth Mahoney, The Guardian[2]