Terence Rattigan's

, first performed at St James's Theatre, London on 22 September 1954, consists in fact of two interlinked plays: “Table by the Window” (with three scenes) and “Table Number Seven” (with two scenes). Both plays are set in the dining room and lounge of the Beauregard Private Hotel near the seaside resort of Bournemouth in Hampshire.

explores typical Rattigan territory: a genteel zone in which loss, loneliness, pain, fear, frustration and potential violence appear just beneath the surface and sometimes erupt through it. Much of the dialogue of

is in what he himself called “a middle-class vernacular” (Rattigan 1953: xix), a muted, decorous discourse which, allied to Rattigan's structural skills as a playwright, can…

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Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "Separate Tables". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 September 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=28506, accessed 26 November 2024.]