Hot Summer Night (play)
Ted Willis's play about race and family in 1950s London.
Hot Summer Night, a 1958 play by Ted Willis, is recognized for its early exploration of racial issues on the British stage and for including what is believed to be the first inter-racial kiss in British theatre.
Quick Facts
- Playwright
- Ted Willis
- Premiere venue
- Bournemouth Pavilion
- Premiere date
- 29 September 1958
- West end venue
- New Theatre (now the Noël Coward Theatre)
- West end opening date
- 26 November 1958
- Closing date
- 10 January 1959
- Number of performances
- 53
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Set in Wapping, the story concerns the Palmer family. Jack Palmer, a successful Trade Union leader, fights for the rights of West Indian workers but is challenged when his daughter Kathie falls in love with a Jamaican named Sonny Lincoln. His wife Nell, who has centered her life on their daughter, reacts with blind hysterical prejudice.
Production and reception
Hot Summer Night premiered at the Bournemouth Pavilion on 29 September 1958, then reached the New Theatre in London's West End on 26 November. Directed by Peter Cotes, it starred John Slater, Joan Miller, Andrée Melly and Lloyd Reckord. The play ran for 53 performances, closing on 10 January 1959, and was replaced five days later by The Rose Tattoo. The Stage, reviewing the Bournemouth premiere, noted that after a leisurely start the play builds into a passionate, almost violent piece of theatre. Upon the West End arrival, the same paper called it a sincere, simple, straightforward play and an absorbing preliminary skirmish regarding its racial theme. Frances Stephens in Theatre World deemed it a worthy effort by Willis to address the social problem of Jamaican immigration, often moving, with the cast giving their very best. Alan Brien in The Spectator described it as a dramatic pamphlet that failed to rise above the level of the living newspaper, and noted that Lloyd Reckord as the West Indian was hampered by the insistence that he be twice as sunny and endearing. Reckord later recalled an incident during a kiss scene when a voice from the stalls objected to a white girl kissing a black man; the scene is reputedly the first inter-racial kiss in British theatre. Peter Cotes called the play one of the first pieces about black-white relationships, noting it reaped a fine press in a limited run. Willis reported receiving hate mail.
Adaptations
Three weeks after the play's closure, it was televised on 1 February 1959 as part of the ABC series Armchair Theatre. Directed by Ted Kotcheff, the production retained the West End cast except Joan Miller, replaced by Ruth Dunning. The Stage noted the production was shot mostly in close-up, giving greater emphasis to black and white. The inter-racial kiss was reputedly a British TV first. The following year Willis wrote the screenplay for a feature film adaptation, Flame in the Streets.
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