Only Two Can Play
There is a promotion coming up at Aberdarcy Library, and both John Williams Lewis and his friend Ieuan Jenkins are after it, John’s wife Jean pointing out that £150 extra a year would make all the difference to them and their two children, toddler Gwyneth (and her imaginary friend) Bulk and baby Freddie, allowing them to move out of the small rooms they take in Mrs Davies’ lodging house, but he is poorly motivated.
His mind and eyes wandering to every young woman who comes in to borrow a book, it is a surprise when socialite Elizabeth Gruffydd-Williams returns the interest beyond her need for a book on Medieval Wales to use a source for costumes for the next production by the D’Arcy players, written by John’s intellectual nemesis, the poet Gareth Probert, with Ieuan taking the lead and John reviewing it in his role as critic for the Aberdarcy Chronicle.
Based on Kingsley Amis’ 1955 novel That Uncertain Feeling, mocking the writer’s time in Swansea, it was adapted by Bryan Forbes as Only Two Can Play for director Sidney Gilliat with Peter Sellers as John Lewis, Virginia Maskell as Jean, frustrated and turning a blind eye to her husband’s wanderings, Mai Zetterling as Liz, wealthy and manipulative, Kenneth Griffith as Ieuan and Richard Attenborough as pompous Probert.
A 1962 comedy of class and aspiration, of small-town politics and indiscretions which muddy the river from which everyone drinks, Only Two Can Play is frustratingly of its time, parochial and relying heavily on the dubious desirability of Sellers, rude, arrogant and avaricious, ogling the women in the library, on the bus, on the tennis courts, Liz’s obsession with him ridiculous, the bored wife of a local councillor looking for a plaything.
Very much a vehicle for Sellers, he is given top billing, a star around which the others revolve, but Williams is not a likeable person, his redemption, such as it is, a grudging acceptance of his lot rather than an improvement of him as a person, Ieuan at least owning his failures, but the farce into which the final act descends feels disjointed, playing to the cheap seats and sitting uncomfortably alongside the cynicism of Amis’ parochial insecurities.
Restored by StudioCanal and joining their Vintage Classics collection alongside Carlton-Browne of the F. O., the new edition of Only Two Can Play is supported by a conversation between Peter Lydon and Vic Pratt on the film, archive interviews with Roy Boulting, Sidney Gilliat, Bryan Forbes and Mai Zetterling conducted for the Seller’s Best retrospective, an additional audio interview with Gilliat and a gallery.
Only Two Can Play will be available on Blu-ray and DVD from StudioCanal from Monday 26th January
