IN PRaise of love

This play is currently on at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester and will be performing until the 8th July 2006.

An almost unbearably moving story of veiled emotions running deep, In Praise Of Love is based on the true life situation of Rattigan's friend and frequent leading man, Rex Harrison, and his wife, Kay Kendell, who suffered an early death from cancer.

In the play, Lydia is sheilding her husband, Sebastian, from the knowledge that she is dying from Leukaemia. But Sebastian does in fact know and is seeking to spare her. The play ends without either of them openly acknowledging their true feelings...

The final scene, according to Rattigan's biographer, Michael Darlow, is 'among the most perfectly crafted and economically effective passages anywhere in British drama'.

This play is also known as 'After Lydia'.