Flare Path (The Rattigan Collection) (NHB Modern Plays)

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Bennett, Ray, " Flare Path: Theater Review", The Hollywood Reporter, 14 March 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-14. The Lysander’s vulnerability meant it was unsuited to the army co-operation role for which it had been developed, so many were re-purposed to serve in the air-sea rescue role, locating downed pilots, marking their position with a smoke bomb and then dropping a dinghy to them.

In 2011, Trevor Nunn directed a West End revival of Flare Path at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket as part of the playwright Terence Rattigan's centenary year celebrations. It marked Nunn's debut as Artistic Director of the theatre. The play opened on 4 March 2011. It recouped after six weeks and was extended an extra week due to popular demand, closing 11 June 2011. [21]

The acting successfully manages both to convey the period and speak to modern audiences. While the characters are somewhat stereotyped, the cast combines well to draw in and hold our attention, especially in the fraught final scenes.

A prototype ‘turret fighter’ version of the Lysander was produced, with a twin tail configuration and 4-gun Nash and Thompson power-operated tail end turret, but this variant did not go into production. Christoph Waltz - he is a master when it comes to script-work and technique. You can learn a lot from watching him.Henry Hitchings of the London Evening Standard noted that the play might seem dated, but said "...there's no mistaking Rattigan's talent for depicting repressed emotion and tragicomic acts of concealment. Crucially, as in most of his writing, there is a gulf between what the characters say and the true feelings they are either unable or unwilling to express." [28] Billington wrote, "...it is precisely that embarrassed English emotional hesitancy that makes this play so overwhelmingly moving." [27] Sam Marlowe of The Arts Desk called it "...a shattering ensemble work, in which every detail glows with truth, compassion and humanity, and where every seemingly ordinary second of life in an existence hemmed in by the ever-present threat of death is charged with a quiet intensity." [29]

This love triangle is contrasted with the genuinely strong marriage between barmaid Doris, and the aristocratic Polish pilot officer Count Skriczcvinsky. But this bond seems doomed in a different way, since his life expectations are dwindling by the hour. With its rugged undercarriage, low stalling speed and impressive short take-off and landing (STOL) capability, the aircraft could operate from airstrips where space was limited, a capability that would become crucial to its later success. Into actionIt was also essential of course not to fall for a trap set by the Germans. Pilots were told to avoid landing if the identification signal was not correct, there was an irregularity in the flare path or if the indicated field was not the one they expected.