SOURCE: Peter, John. “Cause for Celebration.” Sunday Times, London (15 February 1998): 14.

In the following mixed review of Cause Célèbre, Peter chronicles the renaissance of Rattigan's dramatic work and reputation.

Rattigan's last play is enjoying an emotional revival—with a 1990s slant on the British stiff upper lip.

When is a revival not a revival? People have been talking of a Shaw revival, on and off, for decades, but there has never been one for the simple reason that his best plays have never gone away. On the other hand, when James Roose-Evans staged a blistering production of Private Lives 35 years ago at Hampstead, he did initiate a Coward revival: people realised that his best plays were not merely pieces of drawing-room virtuosity but masterpieces of high comedy that put him at the peak, up there with Congreve and Wilde. Has there been a Terence Rattigan revival? Rattigan...