Still Live by Noel Coward

STILL LIFE BY NOEL COWARD, BBC 26 May 1991

• This is the original source from which Brief Encounter originated.  One of the Tonight at 8.30 series of playlets originally performed in the mid-1930s, it tells similar tale as the film yet gives more prominence to Albert, Mrs. Baggott, Beryl and Stanley. They are employees of the station who have their own marital plans in mind. Albert (Norman Rossington) is a northern cheeky chap pie with a yen for Mrs. Baggott (Joan Collins), who rules the cafeteria with a rod of iron, yet yearns for another man to sweep her off her feet, so she can marry for a third time.  She is the kind of independent woman who yearns to dominate a husband. EVentuslly she agrees when Albert presents her with an engagement ring, and promises tea “and afters” as a reward. 

Beryl (Diane Langton) and Stanley (Steve Nicholson) are the flirty types, who enjoy the pleasure of ten minutes together at the end of the day. Stanley is cheeky to Mrs Baggott, but in a very mild way.  it is clear that both are as interested in the romance of Mrs. Baggott as they are in their own affairs.

The third romance between Laura Jesson (Jane Asher) and Alec Harvey (John Alderton) is very clandestine - so clandestine that we don’t initially notice them talking in a corner of the room. Director Sydney Lotterby has done this deliberately to emphasise that the romance isn’t publicly subversive; no one would really notice from the outside that the couple are in love. The real nitty-gritty occurs in whispered comments, and eyes staring at one another, or Laura’s tendency to look away from Alec and down at her hands. When she goes outside to look at the express, and attempt suicide, no one takes any notice. It is only when she returns that Dolly Maitland (Moyra Fraser) observes her state of deshabille on her return that Dolly orders a restorative brandy.  But this is a temporary moment of solicitude; Dolly is soon prattling away, leaving Laura staring blankly at the ground.

in truth, there is almost too little detail here to understand the depth of Laura and Alec’s love-affair. They seem tremendously fond of one another, but there is something keeping them apart.  Maybe this is due to convention; in a society at the end of the war, an extra-marital affair was common, even though frowned upon in British society.  And as respectable members of middle-class society, neither Laura nor Alec can entertain the idea.