SEPARATE TABLES (1958)

Cast

Plot

It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to wax eloquent about fanciful acts of heroism in WWII North Africa, is not what he appears to be. The news is particularly shocking for her frail daughter, Sibyl, who is secretly in love with the Major. A sensitive adaptation of Terence Rattigan's 1955 West End theatre production, with some show stopping performances.