In this television play, a tutor’s suffocating piety is challenged by the arrival of an English student in a French country home.
The household of the widowed Marcelle De Barthas (Helen Cherry) is under the thumb of Blaise Lebel (Marius Goring), a tutor whose devoutness masks a manipulative and possessive nature. His carefully constructed domain is threatened by the arrival of a young English student, Harry Fanning (John Bown). When a romance blossoms between Harry and Marcelle’s daughter, Emmanuele (Pamela Buck), Blaise sees the relationship as a dangerous intrusion. He begins a subtle campaign of psychological warfare to sever the connection and re-establish his control over the emotionally vulnerable family.
This was the BBC’s second production of François Mauriac’s play in seven years, reviving Harold Clayton’s successful 1952 staging with a new cast. The decision to return to the material testifies to its dramatic power for live studio performance. The play is a taut psychological examination of spiritual tyranny, with the outwardly devout tutor Blaise Lebel functioning as a destructive force within the family he serves. Marius Goring, an actor well-suited to coiled intensity, takes the central role previously played by Peter Cushing. The drama’s claustrophobia is its primary engine, turning a provincial French home into a battleground for the family’s soul.
Broadcast: BBC, 90 minutes, 9 June 1959
Written by: François Mauriac
Translated by: Basil Bartlett
Play Production by: Harold Clayton
Main Cast: Marius Goring (Blaise Lebel), Helen Cherry (Marcelle De Barthas), Maureen Pryor (Mademoiselle), Pamela Buck (Emmanuele), Ronnie Raymond (Jean), Waveney Lee (Anne), John Bown (Harry Fanning), Ian Fleming (The Curé)
