TV Reviews : ‘Winslow Boy’: A Flawless Case of Justice for All

Terence Rattigan’s “The Winslow Boy,” about a family’s battle for justice against the British Empire, no less, is a flawless production of a scintillating 1946 play. It airs on “Great Performances” at 9:30 tonight on Channel 28 and at 9 on Channels 15 and 24.

A great performance indeed emerges from Ian Richardson as a supercilious solicitor defending the integrity of a middle-class family whose adolescent son has been unjustly drummed out of the Royal Naval Academy as a thief. The young cadet’s determined, loving father is beautifully played by the late British actor Gordon Jackson (of “Upstairs, Downstairs” butler fame, who died just three weeks ago).

This BBC production is a glowing reminder that Rattigan’s genteel drama, with its bourgeois characters, is remarkably bracing and timely. Its universality bubbles up out of the most warm and human scenes. The action swells from a father’s fight to establish his boy’s innocence into a cause celebre that rocks the House of Commons.

The reverberations deal with issues of liberty but they arise from cozy parlors, broken romantic hearts and characters playing the gramophone and dancing the bunny hug (John Hudson and Emma Thompson in a delicious brother-sister ragtime interlude). The father’s plain citizen compels a government on the brink of World War I to “let right be done”--not mere justice but right--on behalf of his 13-year old boy (Christopher Haley). Refreshingly, all the courtroom scenes occur off camera.

British playwright/screenwriter Rattigan (“Separate Tables”) based his play on an actual media sensation, historically known as the Archer-Shee case, that rocked pre-World War I Britain. But not for a second does the play descend into didactic drivel or propaganda.

“The Winslow Boy” is a feast, nourished by Michael Darlow’s sensitive direction and fluid, ensemble acting, including a lovable performance by Gwen Watford as the amusing, uncomprehending mother.

(Following a British movie version in 1948 starring Robert Donat as the arch barrister, Fredric March and Florence Eldridge originally did the play on TV on CBS’ “DuPont Show of the Month” in 1958.)

The show, in fact, nicely puts the docudrama brouhaha in perspective. Here’s a play based on a true incident that the playwright warned up front took “wild” license with its characters and situations. The important point is that Rattigan’s theme, human rights, flies like a sparrow.