Dear Octopus

by Dodie Smith

Successfully produced in London and New York. 'Dear Octopus' is the family from which none of its members are either able or quite willing to escape. And on the occasion of a golden wedding anniversary the children and grandchildren gather to reminisce and acquaint each other more fully with their activities.

The life of this English family is shown in terms of the chatter of the youngsters, the careers and nursery memories of the middle-aged and the sense of the swift passing of the years, the sweetness of an old nurse, the minor frictions and abiding loyalty of brothers and sisters, the feast-day toast and the benevolent tyranny of the grandmother.

Woven throughout the proceedings is a love story between Fenny, companion to Mrs. Randolph, and Nicholas Randolph.

Genres: Plays, Fiction, Theatre, British Literature, Drama

150 pages, Paperback

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

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qjp4l

Description: 1938: Charles and Dora Randolph are celebrating their Golden Wedding. A chance for four generations of the same family to be together - sparking all the problems and surprises that such a gathering inevitably causes.

Stars Michael Denison as Charles Randolph, Dulcie Gray as Dora Randolph, Mary Wimbush as Belle, Annette Badland as Margery, Frances Jeater as Edna and Dora Bryan as Nanny.

Dodie Smith's play enjoyed a hugely successful run in the theatre before and during the early years of the Second World War.

  "I wish we didn't have any dead people in the family, 
it spoils the party"

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas: "To the family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to." p. 89

Smith is revered for her two classic novels I Capture the Castle and The 101 Dalmatians, but she also had quite an illustrious career as a dramatist. This bagatelle from 1938, which starred a young John Gielgud and Angela Baddeley in London, and Jack Hawkins and Lillian Gish in NY, is a delightful drawing room comedy centering around the Golden Wedding Anniversary of the elderly Randolphs, and their quite large extended family.

I actually had to draw up a genealogical chart to keep everyone straight (there are 17 characters), and it seems like it would take a minimum of 4 hours to perform (not to mention the two intermissions necessary to completely change the three quite detailed stage settings) - so I doubt it could ever be produced nowadays - which is a shame, since it is such a well-made and charming example of a certain type of play no longer written.

PS: Strike that last comment - apparently, the National Theatre is going to mount a revival in Feb. 2024 starring the incomparable Lindsay Duncan as the matriarch, Dora! Hope they film it for NT Live!

And here's the review of that production: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...

[Plateresca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, Stuart has expressed it all so well I have little to add.

It's a charming play!

I liked this quote:
'<...> I can honestly say I've enjoyed all my ages <...>'
Although, for even more honesty, I think having money is of great help when embracing ageing.
And I should say that I don't like families in real life, I hate big family gatherings, I seldom communicate with my extended family members... But I still enjoyed reading about this family, and I believe they would be enjoying themselves to an extent, too.

A nice read, comfortable, but not, I think, cloying.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This comedy moves me beyond its considerable merits. It’s a paean to family. And it’s a poignant look at happiness and continuity alongside loss and aging.

[Harry McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is something Chekovian about it; in the people piling into this house, in the sad/funny/sad of it.

[Rytas Sakas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh don't you mind me crying, it'll pass

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine THREE SISTERS re-written by EM Forster with a touch of Jane Austen, and you get the charming, funny, poignant family drama that is DEAR OCTOPUS, a comedy romance about three sisters who try to manage the flirtation between a governess and their younger brother during the weekend of their parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Smith's play is so dense, dialogue and stage directions wise, that it reads more like a novel (and is rather hard to imagine staged) but the story is delightful, and the characters so distinctly written, that one can't help being pulled into the world she creates and populates so deftly with people many of us will be familiar with from our own families. Act Two, in particular, is masterfully written, and could almost work as a one act play, were not the set up of Act One and the climax of Act Three so delicious. A real treasure for those who love the period, family dramas, and thoroughly English English theater, DEAR OCTOPUS is maybe the unsung gem in Smith's sentimental and bittersweet literary crown.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
1938: Charles and Dora Randolph are celebrating their Golden Wedding. A chance for four generations of the same family to be together - sparking all the problems and surprises that such a gathering inevitably causes.

Stars Michael Denison as Charles Randolph, Dulcie Gray as Dora Randolph, Mary Wimbush as Belle, Annette Badland as Margery, Frances Jeater as Edna and Dora Bryan as Nanny.

Dodie Smith's play enjoyed a hugely successful run in the theatre before and during the early years of the Second World War.

Producer: Glyn Dearman

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qjp4l

[Helen Downton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this play. I played Scrap when I was a young girl, about 50 years ago in a local amdram production. It was the first part I'd ever played and I loved it. I still have my script which was ancient then and is falling apart now.
I had to read it again as it is on at the National theatre and we are going to see it....I'm so pleased to be able to see this wonderful play again.
Yes, it's dated in places but the humour stands the test of time.

[Erika Hayashida · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an easy read! Very wholesome, happy ending! Makes you miss your family🫶🏻

[Sps · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvelous characters, delightful 1930s British English, manners, and customs, and an absolutely obvious love story.

[Tamsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, I really liked this one - Dodie captures the (as Nicholas says) love and loathing of family so well.

Any and all quotes below are from Valerie Grove's "Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith," which also quotes from Dodie's journals and memoirs.

"Dear Octopus, her most famous play, and the only one still performed nearly sixty years later... Dodie decided that most people liked family plays, in which youth and age mingled. Would could be a better centerpiece than a family reunion for a Golden Wedding celebration at 'the Randolphs' county house in North Essex'? Until rehearsals began it was still called Gold Wedding. It was 'bliss to write, and easy to finish.'" (107)

"Everyone has a family of some sort, whether they like it or not. 'Oh, the family, the family - I'm never quite sure if I love it or loathe it, says Nicholas. The family is 'that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.' Yet, as he also says, 'There's something heartbreaking about family gatherings.' Everyone in the audience would respond to such lines." (108)

Funnily enough, her loved ones didn't love it -- "Alec, Phyllis, and Batters found it 'depressing!' Alec 'could not follow the relationships.' Phyllis saw Dora Randolph as her own mother, with whom she had never got on. (Curiously, Dodie always relied on the views of this same tiny circle of people, though they were hardly dependable, since they had all loved "Bonnet" at once."

The play opened with John Gielgud as Nicholas, Dame Marie Tempest as Dora Randolph, and was directed by Glen Byam Shaw. Dodie wrote: "Dear Octopus is a play of lamplight, candlelight, firelight, sunset deepening into twilight..." "Luckily, the lighting man, George Devine, later the founder of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre respected these important subtleties." (109)

The play was a hit - widely proclaimed by many to be Dodie's best (King George and Queen Elizabeth*, and Queen Mary all attended in London) and the opening of Dear Octopus in New York allowed Dodie and husband Alec to avoid the war in Europe by coming to America for casting.

*"Fifty years later, Queen Elizabeth, by then the Queen Mother, saw Dear Octopus at a 1988 revival at Windsor and wrote to tell Dodie how much she had again enjoyed it." (112)

And - that's it - almost all of Dodie for me. I still haven't read "Midnight Kittens," 3rd in the 101 Dalmatians series, but I PLAN to. I own it, but I'll need to do a re-read of 101 and 102 first. I'm unable to get ahold of two of her least liked plays, "The Girl from the Candle-lit Bath" or "Bonnet over the Windmill," which I suppose is fine by me. I also haven't read her three memoirs, all of the "Look Backs..." but maybe someday!

[Michelle Dodd (Creaney) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened. BBC Sounds.

[Dan Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

If OUR TOWN and purgatory had a baby, it still wouldn't be as boring as this play.

[Karna Converse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dialogue and family interactions are as true today as they were when this play was written (1938).

I’ve skimmed scripts of the plays and musicals my kids have performed in, but I’ve never been onstage so have never truly read a play. Until this month, that is – and Wow, what an experience! I don’t think I could have picked a better first play to read than Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith.

Charles and Dora Randolph are celebrating their Golden Anniversary and everyone’s coming home for the weekend celebration. Included in the family gathering are four of six children (two children have passed away but one surviving spouse attends), four grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and a widowed sister-in-law who Charles and Dora’s children, all who are in their late thirties and early forties, have not seen since childhood). Smith weaves themes of unrequited love, the afterlife, and the prodigal son (or daughter, in this case) into the play’s six scenes. Readers are sure to identify with much of the dialogue, especially the line that first drew me to search this play out. This line is part of the Grand Toast given by the youngest child, and the only living son, at the family’s 50th anniversary celebration dinner: “To the family—that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.”


Note: Dear Octopus was first performed in 1938 at Queen’s Theatre in London and ran for 376 performances. Smith then brought the play to New York City where it ran for 53 performances. She is probably best known for her novel, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was adapted into a Disney animated film.