Less Than Kind

Less Than Kind
by Terence Rattigan

Michael, eighteen, returns to wartime London from schooling in Canada,
brimming with youthful left-wing convictions. Reunited with his mother
Olivia, he is alarmed as he begins to realise that she is the mistress
of Sir John Fletcher, a leading member of the war cabinet. Sparks fly
between the idealistic young man and the pragmatic politician, while
Olivia is torn between them. Less Than Kind is Rattigan's first version
of this comedy, but was never staged and never published until 2011, the
centenary of his birth. Instead it was substantially rewritten at the
behest of the Lunts, who were to star in the premiere production, and it
opened in the West End in 1944 as Love In Idleness. This volume
presents both plays in full so that readers may judge for themselves
which is the better.