title: Love In Idleness
text: # Love In Idleness
  
  Love In Idleness is a 1944 comedy play by the British writer Terence Rattigan. A young man with radical left-wing views returns from Canada to discover to his horror that his mother is in a relationship with a wealthy businessman currently serving as Minister for Tank Production.
  
  It was staged in New York with the title O Mistress Mine.
  
  ## Original production
  
  The play opened (following a pre-London tour) at the Lyric Theatre, London, on 20 December 1944, with the following cast:
  
  * Olivia Brown - Lynn Fontanne
  * Polton - Margaret Murray
  * Miss Dell - Peggy Dear
  * Sir John Fletcher - Alfred Lunt
  * Michael Brown - Brian Nissen
  * Diana Fletcher - Kathleen Kent
  * Celia Wentworth - Mona Harrison
  * Sir Thomas Markham - Frank Forder
  * Lady Markham - Antoinette Keith
  