The Bread-Winner (play)

"The Bread-Winner" (1930) was William Somerset Maugham's third last play and is a comedy written in one continuous act, lasting about 2 hours, but with the curtain lowered twice to rest the audience.

It is the story about Charles Battle and the effect of his being "hammered" in the London Stock Exchange to the point where he may or may not be bankrupted. Although this is the over-riding plot to the play Maugham takes the viewer (reader) through a good deal of the play before we know of the disaster that may or may not befall Charles. As soon as we are made aware of the situation, we learn what the effect of this event is to have upon his wife and his late teenage son and daughter. Charles' good friend Alfred Granger and his wife as well as their son and daughter, all of whom are a similar age to the Battle counter parts and best friends with each other fill the back scenes in the Battles’ house at Goulders Green near London.

The play was in written in 1930 and first produced by Athole Stewart in the same year at the Vaudeville Theatre London on September 30, 1930. The title format for the Vaudeville playbill, as reproduced in Who's Who in the Theatre, seventh edition 1933, is "The Breadwinner".

According to theatre archivist Robert Tanitch ("Peggy Ashcroft", Hutchinson, 1987, ISBN 0091710308), one of Peggy Ashcroft's best lines, "Don't you know that since the war the amateurs have entirely driven the professionals out of business? No girl can make a decent living now by prostitution," was quoted so much by 'the gentlemen of the Press' that it was cut after the first night, the management anticipating rightly that the Lord Chamberlain would be paying the theatre a visit.

The play has survived the years and is one of a number of Maugham’s works that has been resurrected in recent years. There is a current 2005-2006 performance running at The Connelly Theatre.

Main cast original production

*Ronald Squire – Mr Charles Battle
*Marie Löhr – Mrs Battle, Margery
*Peggy Ashcroft – Judy Battle
*Jack Hawkins – Patrick
*Evelyn Roberts – Mr Alfred Granger
*Dorothy Dix – Mrs Granger, Dorothy
*Margaret Hood – Diana
*William Fox – Timothy