Photo Flash: In Rehearsal with Orange Tree Theatre's WHILE THE SUN SHINES

Orange Tree Artistic Director Paul Miller directs the first major London production in a generation of Terence Rattigan's Blitz-era comedy While the Sun Shines. It follows Miller's acclaimed production of Rattigan's French Without Tears, which played two sold out runs at the Orange Tree Theatre before embarking on a UK tour.

Miller directs Sabrina Bartlett (Victoria, Game of Thrones, Versailles, Poldark), John Hudson (The Women of Lockerbie), Philip Labey (Shakespeare in Love, On Chesil Beach), Michael Lumsden (The Philanderer, The Archers), Jordan Mifsúd (Misalliance), Julian Moore-Cook (The Rolling Stone, The Lieutenant of Innishmore) and Dorothea Myer-Bennett (The Lottery of Love, The Philanderer). The Designer is Simon Daw, Lighting Designer Mark Doubleday, Sound Designer & Composer Elizabeth Purnell and Casting Consultant Vicky Richardson.

I'll tell you but you won't believe me. I slept in the same bed with an earl... No, not a girl, stupid, an earl.

On the eve of his wedding, the young Earl of Harpenden - Bobby to his friends - has offered his room to Joe, an American soldier he drunkenly met the night before. When Bobby's fiancée Lady Elizabeth turns up, Joe makes a move, thinking she must be Bobby's ex, the wonderful Mabel Crum. But a Free French lieutenant also has eyes for her... And to complicate matters, Bobby's future father in law turns up too.

London in the Blitz, and identities get confused: time to make hay...

The first major London revival of this delectably charming comedy in decades. Rattigan's greatest hit played for over 1,000 performances in the West End when it opened in 1943. A hugely significant 20th century dramatist, his plays include The Deep Blue Sea, After the Dance, Separate Tables, The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and Flare Path.

Photo Credit: Helen Murray

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