Oxford Playhouse is to stage one of Terence Rattigan’s less frequently performed plays next year, bringing In Praise of Love to Oxford in a production that coincides with the 50th anniversary of the playwright’s death.
The production will run from 13 February to 06 March 2027 and will be directed by Oxford Playhouse Artistic Director Mike Tweddle, following his direction of the theatre’s acclaimed 2026 production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The revival marks another step in the Playhouse’s return to producing drama in-house. The theatre says the production forms part of its ambition to develop its role as a national producing-theatre hub, alongside its established programme of visiting theatre, comedy, dance and music.
For Oxford audiences, there is a more direct connection to Rattigan. The playwright studied History at Trinity College, Oxford, and became involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society. While an undergraduate, he co-wrote First Episode, an early work that preceded a career as one of Britain’s most celebrated dramatists.
In Praise of Love, written in 1973, was Rattigan’s penultimate play. Set in 1970s London, it centres on Sebastian, a celebrated literary critic, and his wife Lydia, a refugee from wartime Estonia, whose apparently tired marriage begins to fracture as questions surrounding their family and past emerge.
The play explores the compromises people make in the name of love, alongside themes of family, loyalty, illness and mortality. Its treatment of Lydia’s wartime experiences also brings questions of forced migration and the Holocaust into the drama.
Rattigan died in 1977, making 2027 the 50th anniversary of his death. The anniversary provides a wider context for Oxford Playhouse’s decision to revisit a work that has received considerably less attention than some of the playwright’s better-known plays.
Tweddle said the production offered an opportunity to present what Rattigan himself regarded as a particularly important work.
“It’s a great privilege to stage this masterpiece,” he said, describing the play as one of the most moving and intelligent works he had read. He added that Rattigan had drawn on a lifetime of experience in writing it.
The production will reunite Tweddle with members of the creative team behind his recent work at the Playhouse. Liz Ascroft and Amanda Stoodley will design the set and costumes, with Robin Colyer as composer and sound designer and Will Hayman responsible for lighting.
The Playhouse returned to in-house drama in February 2026 with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, its first such production in a number of years. The theatre has also worked with leading companies on co-productions including Complicité’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and the Olivier Award-winning Pride & Prejudice (sort of).
In Praise of Love therefore arrives at a point when the Playhouse is seeking to expand its role beyond presenting productions made elsewhere and establish itself more firmly as a producing theatre in its own right.
Tickets are currently on priority sale to Friends of Oxford Playhouse, with general sale opening on 11 September.
The production runs at Oxford Playhouse from 13 February to 06 March 2027. It is suitable for audiences aged 14 and over. A post-show talk is scheduled for 24 February.
