| French Without Tears | |
| Premiere: | 1936 |
| Orig Lang: | English |
| Genre: | Comedy |
French Without Tears is a comic play written by a 25-year-old Terence Rattigan in 1936.
It takes place in a cram school for adults needing to acquire French for business reasons. Scattered throughout are Franglais phrases and schoolboy misunderstandings of the French language.
The play was inspired by a 1933 visit to a village called Marxzell in the Black Forest, where young English gentlemen went to cram German.
The play was a success on its London debut, establishing Rattigan as a dramatist. A critic thought it "gay, witty, thoroughly contemporary ... with a touch of lovable truth behind all its satire."[1]
It ran for over 1,000 performances in London, and over 100 in New York.[2] It also established Rex Harrison as a major star.
The play, directed by Harold French, opened on 6 November 1936 at the Criterion Theatre, London, with the following cast:[3]
A film version, directed by Anthony Asquith and starring Ray Milland, was released in 1940.[4] In 1960 Rattigan himself refashioned the work as the musical Joie de Vivre but it was not a success.[5]
A television production was featured in the Saturday Playhouse TV series on 7 June 1958, with Denholm Elliott, Elvi Hale, Colin Broadley, Nicholas Parsons, and Andrew Irvine[6] and another in the BBC's Play of the Month series on 16 May 1976, starring Nigel Havers, Anthony Andrews and David Robb.[7]
A radio version directed by Gerry Jones was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 25 December 1986, repeated on 14 May 1989 and 20 July 1992.[8]