For Services Rendered

Set in late summer 1932 in Kent, the Ardsley family seem to be managing their lives very well following World War One and the Great Depression.

Ethel is married to a former officer, Howard Bartlett, who returns to his position as a tenant farmer after the war.

Collie Stratton, after a lengthy period serving his country in the Navy, has invested in a motorcar repair shop.

Not realizing it would be illegal, and thinking that it would buy him time to solve his cash-flow problems, Collie writes cheques to creditors despite knowing that his bank will refuse to cash them.

Lois, at twenty-seven years old, is single and without a hope of finding a husband in the English backwater in which the family live.

Charlotte is diagnosed by her doctor brother, Charles Prentice as having an unnamed condition, probably cancer, which requires an operation and home care in order to prolong her life.

Charlotte refuses treatment so that her family are not burdened with the expense but also because she feels a sense of liberation and self-possession in deciding her fate for herself.

To me life is like a party that was very nice to start with but has become rather rowdy as time went on and I’m not at all sorry to go home.’ Leonard, who is oblivious to the true states of any of the members of his family ends the play with a cup of tea and a blithely optimistic speech about the future, ‘If you come to think of it we none of us have anything very much to worry about.

We have our health, we have our happiness, and things haven’t been going too well lately, but I think the world is turning the corner and we can all look forward to better times in the future.

This old England of ours isn’t done yet and I for one believe in it and all it stands for.’ Delusional Eva sings God Save Our King and the curtain falls.

[1] The 1993 revival, initially performed at the Salisbury Playhouse, was presented by Deborah Paige, and the cast included Sylvia Syms and Jeffrey Segal.