The Happiest Days of your Life

This classic comedy has the advantage of being well known as a film  made in 1950 starring Alastair Sim, Joyce Grenfell and Margaret Rutherford  and which has been shown many times on TV.    It was a forerunner for the St Trinians' series.   

The central plot concerns a girls' school being forced into relocating to a boys' school, due to an administrative error.    The action takes place just after the end of the Second World War.    This was in the days prior to co-education, when the idea of boys and girls at boarding school together was rather shocking to many.

The detailed set of the masters' common room at Hilary Hall boys school in 1946 was very realistically designed by Leighton Davies and provided ample opportunity for the various misunderstandings that took place with its several doors and entrances.

To complicate matters, Dick Tassell (Bruce Dean), newly demobbed from the RAF, had a twinkle in his eye and was attracted to the female teacher Joyce Harper, played prettily by Angela Richardson.     Miss Gossage (Izzy McLean) had the "hots" for senior master Rupert Billings (Terry Ward) which was unfortunate (for her) and totally unwanted (by him).    We had a disconcerted headmaster Godfrey Pond (Tony Gauvain) and a battleaxe Girls' School Principal, Miss Evelyn Whitchurch (Marian Heathcote).

Much of the confusion in the second and third acts came from the unwise attempts by the male staff to pretend to  parents Mr and Mrs Sowter (Barrie Heathcote and Wendy Davies) that their boy attended a boys only school and that no girls were around, and vice versa by the female staff to  parents Rev'd and Mrs Peck (Mike Richardson and Jeannie Metcalf), regarding their daughter Julia.

There was a part for school porter and groundsman Rainbow (truculently played by Bill Pilcher).   This involved a great deal of hurried changing in his duties resulting in his increasing displeasure which he made known to all and sundry.

We had a naughty schoolboy in a vividly striped blazer, Hopcroft Minor (Daniel Williams), up to no good with a prank involving treacle and a girl pupil Barbara Calhoun (Victoria Arnold) with a schoolgirl crush on Joyce Harper, her teacher.

The plot may appear a little dated and unlikely in today's trendy society, but as a microcosm of life in immediate post war Britain it would be very apt.    The various actors and actresses all played their part in this descent into chaotic farce with great believability.    All did extremely well, but the pick of them for my money were Terry Ward as a superbly discomforted Billings, fending off the insistent and delightfully gawky Miss Gossage "out Grenfelling" the great Joyce herself.   The other outstanding performance was by Marian Heathcote as Miss Whitchurch, her distaste for the male sex overpoweringly real and rather wonderful to watch.

The set was given great attention with a chalkboard, poster of a famous Churchill saying, period telephone and globe all prominently displayed.   Wardrobe by Ann Lyth was entirely accurate for the period.   Wigs and hairstyles were also accurate.

Farce such as this is perhaps the most difficult of all theatrical genres to make believable.    It is to the credit of everyone on stage and backstage that it worked so beautifully and comically.

Mike Fanya the  Director was the inspiration behind this really enjoyable production,  which was staged by the company forty years previously.   This talented and friendly company owe a great deal to him for his sterling efforts and  ability as in turn does he to them.

Sue and I were given our usual friendly welcome and we drove back home afterwards with a warm glow in our hearts.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.