Jericho Arts Centre to November 15, 2026
Tickets: $37 (adults), $32 (seniors), $25 (students with ID) at www.williambdavis.com/thebrowningversion
Posted November 2, 2026
At one point during the performance I saw of this Smoking Gun Collective production of The Browning Version, I actually caught my breath; I think I groaned involuntarily. I hoped it wasn’t too loud because director William B. Davis and his wife/producer/playwright Emmanuelle Davis were sitting right in front of me. On the other hand, I think back on the words of Tennessee Williams who was always working towards, he said, “a collective sob” from the audience – the moment everyone simultaneously experiences the same emotion. In Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire, for example, we all ache when Blanche says, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” as she is being led away to an asylum. You’ll know this moment in The Browning Version when you are shocked by something Millie Crocker-Harris (Lucia Frangione) says and your heart breaks for her husband Andrew (Douglas Abel). Playwright Rattigan, director Davis and his excellent cast score a bull’s eye.
The setting for Terence Rattigan’s play, which premiered in London in 1948, is an English boarding school. Andrew Crocker-Harris, dubbed The Crock by his students who fiercely dislike him, has been coerced into leaving the school where he has taught Classics for eighteen years. He has some health problems but not significant enough to force his retirement. The school administrator Dr. Frobisher (John Prowse) simply wants someone younger to revitalize the curriculum. Classics – out; Modern Languages – in. A new teacher, Peter Gilbert (Carter Dallman), is already on the scene; he and his wife (played by Zoe Salvin) have been invited by Dr. Frobisher to look at the house the school provides but in which Crocker-Harris and his wife still reside. Awkward and unpleasant.
It’s not so much that the students hate Crocker-Harris, a brilliant Classicist, it’s just that after all these years he seems to lack passion or a sense of humour. They refer to him as “The Himmler of the Lower Fifth.” But there is one student – young John Taplow (Kamil Whaley-Kalaora) – who appreciates him. Although Taplow does an exaggerated imitation of Crocker-Harris for the entertainment of Frank Hunter (Chris Walters), the science teacher, Taplow confesses later, “I like him [Crocker-Harris] very much.”
Making everything worse for Crocker-Harris is his wife’s affair with Hunter.
Director Davis has brought together a talented cast although, once again, a show experienced late substitutions due to ill health. Frangione came in after the first 2-1/2 weeks of rehearsals and does the job like the professional she is; her performance is simply stellar. The red dress and red/black shoes (by costume designer Julie White) are perfect. Just enough decolletage, just enough leg. Frangione at her best.
Douglas Abel, who portrays Crocker-Harris, joined the cast even closer to opening night. There was a point at which it looked like the production would have to be cancelled or postponed but Abel stepped in and he does a terrific job. It’s a huge role and the emotional trajectory that Crocker-Harris follows is complex. Indeed, that is the real strength of The Browning Version: Andrew Crocker-Harris, Millie Crocker-Harris, John Taplow and Frank Hunter – the major characters – are all human, complicated, multifaceted, vulnerable souls. There are no complete villains here – even Millie. Crocker-Harris says there are two kinds of love: “Hers and mine.” Loving someone and knowing how to love them are often two different things. He and Millie were doomed from the beginning; they just didn’t know it.
Kamil Whaley-Kalaora, portraying young Taplow, is almost translucently innocent and sweet. It’s also a big role, and he handles it with complete confidence. Chris Walters’ Frank Hunter is full of cocksure bravado but when the time comes, he makes Hunter’s about-face completely credible.
Set design – a very wide 40s drawing room complete with period-appropriate furnishings – is by Linda Begg with lighting design by Phil Miguel. A significant complement to the play is the recorded, pre-show music selected by Emmanuelle Davis; it includes the Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Fauré and A Festival of Lessons and Carols, directed by Boris Ord and performed by The King’s College Choir of Cambridge.
The Browning Version is in the fine tradition of the well-made play. It’s intelligent. Compassionate. Honest. Well written. Well executed. You should see it. (And you can skip the film version with Albert Finney. He’s terrific but the screenwriter got The Browning Version all wrong.)