paperback ebook 9.99 Quantity: 1 Add to Basket Join Faber Members for 10 off your first order. Scene 1 The drawing room of the Chamberlayne's London flat. Eliot, described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘Obviously something more than a successful play’. Shuttlethwaite), Celia Coplestone, Alexander Maccolgie Gibbs, Peter Quilpe, An Unidentified Guest later identified as Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly, Lavinia Chamberlayne, A Nurse-Secretary, Caterer's Man Act I. The major characters include the following: Edward, Julia, Celia, Peter, Alex, and an unidentified guest. Eliot Characters: Edward Chamberlayne, Julia (Mrs. Beginning with Act 1, Eliot presents all of the major characters in one place, in the Chamberlaynes home drawing room. Print Room at the Coronet, London, until 10 October. Eliots The Cocktail Party is set in London.

One thing I missed in Hilton McRae’s authoritative performance as the shadowy fixer was the skittish little dance Alec Guinness used to do on his first exit.īut there is good work from Richard Dempsey and Helen Bradbury as the tormented Chamberlaynes, Marcia Warren and Christopher Ravenscroft as their eccentric guests and Chloe Pirrie as Celia, a potential martyr in Dior clothing. My favourite moment comes when Edward says of his lover’s attempt at poetry that: “it is interesting if one is interested in Celia.” That line goes for little in Abbey Wright’s revival, which is clear, elegant and coherent, if a touch short on humour. I like the play best when it is satirising the self-absorption of fashionable society. In addition to exploring his private hell, Eliot suggests that the only alternative to the bleak materialism of the postwar world is some form of ecstatic sacrifice: my objection is not to the idea but to the fact that the ultimate crucifixion of Edward’s lover, Celia Coplestone, comes out of the blue. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian Ecstatic sacrifice … Chloe Pirrie (Celia Coplestone) and Hilton McRae (Unidentified Guest) in The Cocktail Party. An enigmatic doctor attending the initial cocktail party who turns out to be the psychiatrist in league with Julia and Alex to get the Chamberlaynes back together.

The cocktail party eliot