"The Lie" was the third offering broadcast by the BBC under their "Play for Today" banner in 1970. Most "Plays for Today" were written by British playwrights; indeed, the series was designed as a showcase for British talent. "The Lie", however, was written by the Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman as part of a European project which "enabled a play to be broadcast simultaneously in several languages across Europe" for the first time, although the event was not confined to Europe because CBS also broadcast an American version. The version which went out in Britain was described as a translation of Bergman's Swedish-language original, but a better description might be "adaptation" because the translator moved the action from Sweden to England. (I understand that the same was done in most other participating countries).
Despite its foreign origins, the play comes across as the sort of "adultery in middle-class suburbia" drama which to which British television viewers had been introduced in the sixties and which was to become even commoner during the seventies. The leading characters are Andrew Firth, an architect, and his wife Anna, a college lecturer. It gradually becomes clear that Anna is having an affair with Ellis, a friend of Andrew's. Indeed, this affair appears to have been going on for eight years, which means that it must have begun not long after her marriage to Andrew.(Gemma Jones, who plays Anna, would only have been 28 in 1970).
Andrew is blissfully unaware of his wife's adultery, until he feels the need to confess to an infidelity on his own. This was only a one-night stand, but his confession prompts Anna to reveal her own long-term relationship with Ellis, and this triggers the end of their marriage, which collapses in violence and recriminations. Bergman's title may have been ironic. The relationship between Andrew and Anna could survive so long as it was based upon lies, but it was not strong enough to cope with the truth.
The play's has a number of weaknesses. One is that it is very slow-moving; little happens during the first hour or so, with most of the action compressed into the final scenes. During this hour potentially interesting themes are raised only to be dropped. We learn, for example, that Anna has a gay brother, Albert, who is much older than her. He is in a mental hospital suffering from psychiatric illness, and the implication is that his illness is connected to the psychological stress suffered by gay men during this period; homosexuality had only been legalised in Britain three years earlier, and public attitudes towards it were, for the most part, still intolerant. Albert, however, only appears in one scene and then disappears from the action. Similarly, we learn that Andrew has suffered a setback in his career when a government-funded project he has been working on is dropped, but this is another theme which seems to lead nowhere.
Another weakness is that Bergman never really explains why Anna began her affair with Ellis, or how their relationship works. We see Anna spending the night with Ellis, and she even talks about "living with him", but I found it difficult to take this literally. Given that Andrew was completely in the dark about his wife's affair, at the most she could only have spent the night with him occasionally, on each occasion finding a plausible excuse which her husband would accept uncritically.
There is some decent acting, especially from Frank Finlay as Andrew, but for all its status as a historic first, "The Lie" is not saying as much as Bergman hoped it would. There is some brief nudity, which might have upset the Mary Whitehouse brigade, but there is really nothing about the play that would have shocked a sophisticated seventies TV audience or told them anything new. In the course of its "Play for Today" was to come up with some much better dramas about marital infidelity. Indeed, it was to show one such drama the following week in the shape of Dennis Potter's "Angels Are So Few", which I have always regarded as the first of the great "Plays for Today". 5/10.
Despite its foreign origins, the play comes across as the sort of "adultery in middle-class suburbia" drama which to which British television viewers had been introduced in the sixties and which was to become even commoner during the seventies. The leading characters are Andrew Firth, an architect, and his wife Anna, a college lecturer. It gradually becomes clear that Anna is having an affair with Ellis, a friend of Andrew's. Indeed, this affair appears to have been going on for eight years, which means that it must have begun not long after her marriage to Andrew.(Gemma Jones, who plays Anna, would only have been 28 in 1970).
Andrew is blissfully unaware of his wife's adultery, until he feels the need to confess to an infidelity on his own. This was only a one-night stand, but his confession prompts Anna to reveal her own long-term relationship with Ellis, and this triggers the end of their marriage, which collapses in violence and recriminations. Bergman's title may have been ironic. The relationship between Andrew and Anna could survive so long as it was based upon lies, but it was not strong enough to cope with the truth.
The play's has a number of weaknesses. One is that it is very slow-moving; little happens during the first hour or so, with most of the action compressed into the final scenes. During this hour potentially interesting themes are raised only to be dropped. We learn, for example, that Anna has a gay brother, Albert, who is much older than her. He is in a mental hospital suffering from psychiatric illness, and the implication is that his illness is connected to the psychological stress suffered by gay men during this period; homosexuality had only been legalised in Britain three years earlier, and public attitudes towards it were, for the most part, still intolerant. Albert, however, only appears in one scene and then disappears from the action. Similarly, we learn that Andrew has suffered a setback in his career when a government-funded project he has been working on is dropped, but this is another theme which seems to lead nowhere.
Another weakness is that Bergman never really explains why Anna began her affair with Ellis, or how their relationship works. We see Anna spending the night with Ellis, and she even talks about "living with him", but I found it difficult to take this literally. Given that Andrew was completely in the dark about his wife's affair, at the most she could only have spent the night with him occasionally, on each occasion finding a plausible excuse which her husband would accept uncritically.
There is some decent acting, especially from Frank Finlay as Andrew, but for all its status as a historic first, "The Lie" is not saying as much as Bergman hoped it would. There is some brief nudity, which might have upset the Mary Whitehouse brigade, but there is really nothing about the play that would have shocked a sophisticated seventies TV audience or told them anything new. In the course of its "Play for Today" was to come up with some much better dramas about marital infidelity. Indeed, it was to show one such drama the following week in the shape of Dennis Potter's "Angels Are So Few", which I have always regarded as the first of the great "Plays for Today". 5/10.
