Before the Party

Rodney Ackland's first play Improper People was produced at the Arts Theatre Club, London in 1929, but it was not until 1932 that Ackland's work finally reached the West End, when his fourth play, Strange Orchestra, transferred from the Embassy, Swiss Cottage to the St. Martin's, St. Martin's Lane. The transfer caused James Agate of the Sunday Times to observe that the other work on the West End bore as much resemblance to Strange Orchestra "as unbleached calico to tattered silk." The Dark River, produced at the Whitehall Theatre and revived at the Orange Tree in 1985, was acclaimed by Hilary Spurling in the Spectator as "perhaps one of the indisputably great plays of the past half-century in English."

"Sheer spiky bliss - [a] forgotten 1949 gem by Rodney Ackland.' starstarstarstarstar Independent 'Rodney Ackland's bitingly funny 1949 adaptation of a 1926 short-story by Somerset Maugham fleshes out its wry source in a theatrically entertaining way and ferrets out its nutritious dramatic meat too.' Daily Telegraph '[Before the Party] makes a strong case for Rodney Ackland to be next in line for the revival treatment - sparkling' Evening Standard 'a subtle evisceration of upper-middle-class manners' Arts Desk 'gripping, blackly comic' Financial Times 'a perfect example of Ackland's singular craftsmanship - Ackland holds up a mirror to the hypocrisy and casual callousness of the middle classes' Daily Express "