A Voyage Round My Father
Haymarket Theatre, London, 1971
Role: The Son

A Voyage Round My Father is an autobiographical play by John Mortimer -- an only son who grew up to become a lawyer, but more notably also became a playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Mortimer is most famous for his creation of Rumpole of the Bailey.

In a 1991 interview, Jeremy described getting the part: After leaving the National Theatre, Jeremy said he was worn out, so he took off on a six-month tour of South America. "They'd told me I'd never work again if I did this amazing journey," he said. But upon his arrival home, "The phone rang and it was John Mortimer. He said, 'Jeremy we're casting the story of my father's life, A Voyage Round My Father, with Alec Guiness. Do you want to play me?' And I said yes. He said, 'Where have you been?' I said, 'away.' He said, 'Oh have you had a cold?' I said yes. And we started rehearsals the following Monday ... and it ran for eight months at the Haymarket in 1971."

The first version of A Voyage Round My Father appeared as a series of three half-hour sketches for BBC radio in 1966. It became a television play, and then Mortimer adapted it for the stage in 1971 with Sir Alec Guinness as The Father and Jeremy Brett as The Son. In 1982 Mortimer turned the play back into a film for television with Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates. --Wikipedia

The Father is a successful lawyer struck with blindness in middle age. However, Father's blindness is never referred to until The Son's wife-to-be, Elizabeth, finally asks: "Why do you all walk about pretending he's not blind?"

Indeed, the family has made pretending a way of life, and it is the pretending which produces the comedy.

The Son speaks as narrator, setting the scenes in motion and watching from the sidelines, sometimes becoming caught up in the action. The reference to "voyage" and "round" refers to the distance dividing The Father from The Son. Throughout the play, The Son deals with bitter memories of their relationship, but he also seeks his father's respect and love and in the process learns to love in return.

Audiences loved the play, and a drama critic in the London Telegraph had nothing but praise:

Mr. Mortimer confines himself rigorously to the realm of comedy, which makes his play all the more moving. Only at the very end does The Son register his sense of loss: a loss fully understood and shared by the audience.

The sensitive, modestly inhibited son is played with suitably crumpled charm by Jeremy Brett. Leveen McGrath is the patient mother, and Nicola Pagett lends her feline beauty and sharp claws to the tough, unsentimental daughter-in-law. The cast is uniformly excellent.

The play stands or falls with Father, and Sir Alec Guinness is superlative. His sense of comedy, his delicacy, his meticulous attention to physical detail and his suggestions of depth are masterfully integrated: it is his best performance in recent years. His sad clown's face is like a landscape registering every nuance of changing light.

Interview with John Mortimer