The Truth About Blayds, a play by A.A. Milne, will be getting its revival over a hundred years after it was first played. Written by the author of the much-loved Winnie the Pooh books, The Truth About Blayds was first performed in London in December 1921. In 2025, the three-act comedy returns to a London stage.
The play centres the revered poet, Oliver Blayds, and the turmoils of his family in the wake of his death, when it is discovered that numerous poems passed off as his own work, were in fact those of a friend who had died young. The piece’s revival works the English poets 90th birthday.
This first London production of the play in over 100 years will open for a short run at Finborough Theatre from 2nd September to 27th September. The show is directed by David Gilmore who has directed many West End productions including several award-winning productions produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Starring Karen Archer, Catherine Cusack, William Gaunt, Lucy Jamieson, George Rowlands, Martin Turner, and Rupert Wickham.
Introducing the show, Finborough Theatre wrote: “Thought-provoking and wickedly funny, this rediscovered modern classic from 1921 is a compelling examination of the cult of celebrity, betrayal, and the cost of telling the truth.”
In the early 1920s, prior to writing Winne the Pooh, A. A. Milne, had been best known for his humorous articles and verses in Punch but he was beginning to establish a reputation as a playwright. The original version of The Truth About Blayds, ran on the West End, then Broadway and in Australia.
The Illustrated London News described the play as an “admirable comedy… with the wit and literary finish of its dialogue, its note of sustained irony, its success in raising expectancy in the first act, and developing an interesting idea emotionally in the sequel, stands as quite the best thing Mr Milne has given the stage”.
While the wit that is Dorothy Parker called it “a fine and merciless and honest play”.
