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(Second performance: Thursday at 9.45 p.m.)
A play by Peter Watling.
[Starring] John Robinson and Rachel Gurney
The action of the play takes place in the matron's sitting-room at Wyvern School
There is conflict in the wilderness which is a boys' school, conflict between boy and boy, between master and master, between sport and study. The two masters are Mr. Payne (who is in charge of the school sports) and Mr. Reynolds (who teaches Classics). Their proteges are Pemberton, who is spoiled and an ass but is good at cricket, and Miller, who is scruffy and perhaps given to hysteria, but a considerable scholar.
Mr. Reynolds's passion for learning is something vivid and personal; his attempts to understand his wild, young charges are equally real. And the boys are genuine, too. There is something moving in Miller's struggle to make others understand that he is something other than a remarkable swotting machine.
And at the centre of the action stands the Matron, not stiff and starchy, but as understanding and sympathetic as only the lovely Miss Gurney can make her.