The Winslow Boy

The Winslow Boy is an English play by Terence Rattigan based on an actual incident in the Edwardian era, which took place at the Royal Naval College, Osborne House. The play was later made into a famous film in 1948 which was directed by Anthony Asquith, starring Robert Donat as Sir Robert Morton, Cedric Hardwicke as Arthur Winslow, and Margaret Leighton as Catherine Winslow. The film was remade in 1999, this time directed by David Mamet, starring Nigel Hawthorne and Jeremy Northam as Arthur Winslow and Sir Robert Morton KC, respectively.

Differences between real life and fiction

In the play, Rattigan quotes from actual parliamentary debates and court transcripts, but makes major changes to the characters and the timing of events, moving them closer to the start of World War I. He also intoduces several fictional characters: a sister, Catherine Winslow, a suffragette and, as we learn in the final lines of the play, a potential future politician; her erstwhile fiancee, John Watherstone; and Desmond Curry, a solicitor who eventually proposes to Catherine.

Related Topics:
World War I - Suffragette

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Martin Archer-Shee junior was a very different character from the failed university student, Dickie Winslow, of the play. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1910, and in his mid-thirties at the time of the case.

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Whilst the play gives only indirect reference to the court case and the parliamentary debates, the 1948 film introduces scenes from these events that are not in the play.

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