In from the cold | 12 February 2011

Philip Ziegler puts the case for Terence Rattigan, whose centenary is celebrated with numerous revivals of his work

After decades in the doldrums, Terence Rattigan seems once more to be returning to popular and critical favour. Last year After the Dance was one of the National Theatre’s more emphatic successes, and the centenary of Rattigan’s birth is being celebrated by productions of his plays at the Old Vic, the Jermyn Street Theatre and in Northampton, West Yorkshire and Chichester. There is to be a Rattigan season at the British Film Institute, and a new screen adaptation of The Deep Blue Sea. Rattigan, it seems, is back.

Of course, he never really went away. His plays have never ceased to be standard material for repertory or amateur productions and though his films were rarely shown they were never totally forgotten. But nor, in terms at least of critical esteem, had he ever been entirely there.