The Deep Blue Sea on Television 1994

This 1994 production of the Rattigan classic stars Penelope Wilton, who had recently played the role onstage, and Colin Firth in a pre-big British film star role.  Seeng this immediately after the 1955 classic, I was struck by the difference in performances of the two leading roles. In 1955 Leigh was the put-upon lover enjoying the good things in life but opting rather daringly to ditch her comfortable life and her lover and pursue an independent existence instead. It was a brave move for such an emotional woman, but one she had to take. By contrast Wilton knew her own mind exactly and what she wanted from life.Freddie was a nice boy -and presumably good in bed - but he was out her league emotionally. She entertained the idea of accompanying him to South America, but rejected it on the grounds of practicality.  Freddie was interpreted as a callow youth way out of his depth; he could cope with the superficialities of male tap-room chat, but had no way of dealing with Hester.

This was a much harder production of THE DEEP BLUE SEA, concentrating on Hester’s life- choices. The suicide at the beginning was read as a cry for help: Hester did not want to die, but needed a shoulder to cry on. This was provided by the doctor, whose recall of his war experiences put Hester’s struggles into perspective. In the first part of the production she looked for succour from a host of males, including her husband.  But things changed as time developed, as she acquired a hard edge to her dialogue.  This was a woman acknowledging she had been through life’s knocks, and wasn’t going to accept anything she didn’t want. She despatched Freddy, kitbag and all, and firmly informed her husband (who remained remarkably deficient in self-awareness or an understanding of his wife’s feelings.  Those viewers who want to know will be interested to know that the Judge was played by Ian Holm, who also played the tormented schoolteacher in THE BROWNING VERSION. Now he was playing a role of an authority-figure unable to understand his wife’s suffering. 

The design was very much mid50s dowdy,reflecting the world of genteel poverty into which Hester had sunk.  But the performances were defiantly up to date, reflecting an uncaring early 1980s world where the bourgeois are purely concerned with respectability, and the feckless middle class care only for sexual gratification. The only solution is to strike out on one’s own