Overview

Michael, eighteen, returns to wartime London from schooling in Canada, brimming with youthful left-wing convictions. Reunited with his mother Olivia, he is alarmed as he begins to realise that she is the mistress of Sir John Fletcher, a leading member of the war cabinet. Sparks fly between the idealistic young man and the pragmatic politician, while Olivia is torn between them. Less Than Kind is Rattigan's first version of this comedy, but was never staged and never published until 2011, the centenary of his birth. Instead it was substantially rewritten at the behest of the Lunts, who were to star in the premiere production, and it opened in the West End in 1944 as Love In Idleness. This volume presents both plays in full so that readers may judge for themselves which is the better.