Autumn Crocus / Service / Touch Wood: Three plays by Dodie Smith

by Dodie Smith

Three Autumn Crocus; Service; Touch

363 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Born Dorothy Gladys Smith in Lancashire, England, Dodie Smith was raised in Manchester (her memoir is titled A Childhood in Manchester). She was just an infant when her father died, and she grew up fatherless until age 14, when her mother remarried and the family moved to London. There she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and tried for a career as an actress, but with little success. She finally wound up taking a job as a toy buyer for a furniture store to make ends meet. Giving up dreams of an acting career, she turned to writing plays, and in 1931 her first play, Autumn Crocus, was published (under the pseudonym “C.L. Anthony”). It was a success, and her story — from failed actress to furniture store employee to successful writer — captured the imagination of the public and she was featured in papers all over the country. Although she could now afford to move to a London townhouse, she didn't get caught up in the “literary” scene — she married a man who was a fellow employee at the furniture store.

During World War II she and her husband moved to the United States, mostly because of his stand as a conscientious objector and the social and legal difficulties that entailed. She was still homesick for England, though, as reflected in her first novel, I Capture the Castle (1948). During her stay she formed close friendships with such authors as Christopher Isherwood and John Van Druten, and was aided in her literary endeavors by writer A.J. Cronin.

She is perhaps best known for her novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, a hugely popular childrens book that has been made into a string of very successful animated films by Walt Disney. She died in 1990.

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down.

[N.B: Reviews of [book:Autumn Crocus|9722685] and Touch Wood are under those separate titles.]

This was Smith's 2nd play, produced in 1932, a mere 18 months after her first smash (Autumn Crocus opened and ran almost a full year. It had a moderately successful run of 6 months during a recession which is the subject of the play itself. Smith had worked for a number of years at Heal and Sons furniture store (having an affair with Ambrose Heal, her boss!!), and used her knowledge of that milieu in creating this story of a 200-year-old department store in threat of going under due to hard times. It has a cast of thirty and five fairly elaborate stage settings, so one wonders how it ever got produced.

The characters are all quite well-defined, the dialogue as always is crisp and clever, and it is intriguing that the main character, Gabriel Service, is a man in his sixties who has recently married a young girl of 25 who openly cheats on him and runs off halfway through the play with another man. Scandalous! It all comes out right in the end, with a rainbow appearing in the final moments to declare fair skies ahead.

[Tamsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is just for Dodie Smith's play, Service (I couldn't find a separate listing for just Service!). My review for Autumn Crocus is here and for Touch Wood, here.

This play was her second, after Autumn Crocus which ran for 10 months and 371 performances! After the financial success of Autumn Crocus, Dodie reduces her hours at Heal's Department Store (here's a nice article about Dodie and Heal's) to 1 afternoon a week and in 1932, she has the idea to write about the Depression pulling from her experience of being a shop assistant at Heal's for the past 9 years, and her affair with Ambrose Heal.

From Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith:

"Unemployment in Great Brian was at 2.75 million. One furniture shop, Shoolbreds, had been driven out of business, and the staff at Heal's had been asked to take a ten percent reduction in their salaries, reflecting the drop in profits. She would write a play called Service about a shop like Heal's, a family business facing recession, and its staff's efforts to save it, with Ambrose Heal the obvious model for the character of Gabriel Service." (82)

"... Eventually she gave [Service] to Basil Dean. He was dubious: it had thirty characters, six different sets, and no love interest." (82) Basil produces it anyways with Jack Hawkins, Ann Todd, Joyce Kennedy - and fun fact, Ambrose Heal provides most of the furniture for the sets from Heal's! See, sleeping with your boss does it have its perks.

Ambrose on Service: "He realized of course that Service was about Heal's, and told Dodie the play was 'sheer nonsense, my child, and you know it.'" (82)

The play is also very well-received and so Dodie has two successful plays in a row now, which is a good confidence boost for her. I did enjoy this play too - I mean, it's a bit obvious, sure (and I don't mean the Heal's connection). It starts off stressful - money concerns, family concerns, staff concerns, and you kind of get right from the start that there's no way out but up and towards a happy ending. However, the characters (and there are a lot of them!) are all really well-done, and you root for them. There's a great character (and unfortunately I cannot remember his name and the book is back at the library) - but my favorite character/little side story in this is an employee who worked at Service for years, never really advancing farther up in the ranks because he so enjoyed what he was doing. He gets the sack due to the staff reductions, and 18 months or so go by in the play (not sure how they communicated this actual time change on stage) and then his family, which was devastated when they heard the news, are actually doing quite well! It's really sweet - they're running a bakery out of their home, and they seem happy and successful, although busy, but the man still loves/is rooting for Service. He shows back up at the end when almost all is lost, and then all is won, and it's a pretty sweet little moment. Dodie is such a great character writing and she captures humanity so well. It's a lovely little play.

After the beginning success of Service in 1932, Autumn Crocus is going to debut in New York and Dodie accompanies Basil Dean to the US, but before she leaves Heal's and the UK, she also leaves Ambrose Heal. "...Dodie felt she must confront Ambrose, who had guessed that her feelings towards him changed. She invited him to a farewell dinner, and pretended it was 'one of those days which could not end in the way his visits usually did.'" (This is sex!) After breaking up with Ambrose, she becomes lovers with a Heal's employee, Alec Beesley, whom she marries in 1939 and remains pretty happily married to until his death in 1987.

On this time of switching lovers in her life: "She realized she was not now and never had been truly in love with Ambrose, despite having assured him she would be faithful to him through eternity. And she also realized that whereas she could bear to hurt Ambrose, she could not bear to go on hurting Alec, and keep him waiting and hoping... But Dodie also realized that sex itself did not really interest her now that she had fame and fortune... She and Alec had become lovers, but this was not as important to her as it had once been, and their sex life was 'not easy.' Yet this did not seem to matter. Alec spent all of his spare time working as Dodie's secretary, assistant and business manager and this appeared to be enough for him... In later years, she had dreaded meeting Ambrose, whereas she could not imagine ever ceasing to care for Alec. 'It is as if we slid from great friendship and ideal companionship, into a state of love beyond being 'in love' - or at least, I did.'... Oddly enough, Dodie never examined, even in a private journal, the reasons why Alec (so young and attractive) should love her (older, plain) so devotedly that he could embark upon a physically low-key, emotionally unpassionate affair that would lead to a companionable marriage, and ask nothing more than a partnership in return from her. But this he apparently did: Alec seemed satisfied with being Dodie's best friend and life partner, or at least he never evinced a moment's discontent." (85-87)