Dangerous Corner

Dangerous Corner is a 1932 British play by the English writer J. B. Priestley, the first of his "Time Plays". It was premiered in May 1932 by Tyrone Guthrie at the Lyric Theatre, London, and filmed in 1934 by Phil Rosen.

Priestley had recently collaborated with Edward Knoblock on the 1931 play The Good Companions and now wished "to prove that a man might produce long novels and yet be able to write effectively, using the strictest economy, for the stage." While being praised highly by James Agate, Dangerous Corner received extremely poor reviews and after three days he was told that the play would be taken off, a fate that he averted by buying out the syndicate. It then ran for six months. Priestley's action was further vindicated by the worldwide success the play was to enjoy, although he soon lowered his estimate of this work and as early as 1938 remarked: "It is pretty thin stuff when all is said and done."

In 1947, the play was republished in a Pan Books paperback titled Three Time-Plays, along with the author's Time and the Conways and I Have Been Here Before.

Robert and Freda Caplan are entertaining guests at their country retreat. A chance remark by one of the guests ignites a series of devastating revelations, revealing a hitherto undiscovered tangle of clandestine relationships and dark secrets, the disclosures of which have tragic consequences. The play ends with time slipping back to the beginning of the evening and the chance remark not being made, the secrets remaining hidden and the "dangerous corner" avoided.

The play begins in darkness with a muffled gunshot and scream. Lights are turned on to reveal a drawing room containing four women listening to a radio play after dinner. Two of them, Freda and Betty, are the wives of directors of a publishing firm. With them are Olwen, a close friend of Freda and Betty, and Maud Mockridge, a novelist whose books are published by the firm.

Their chat has turned to the suicide the previous year of Freda's brother-in-law Martin Caplan when they are interrupted by the entry of the husbands, Robert and Gordon, along with Charles, who works at the firm. They discuss whether it is best always to reveal the complete truth; Robert argues that it is, while Charles believes doing so is dangerous. Gordon tries to find some dance music on the radio, but it stops working. Freda offers Olwen a cigarette from a musical box, which Olwen recognizes as having belonged to Martin. Freda insists that Olwen could not have seen the box before because Martin had not had it when Olwen saw him last. Olwen accepts Freda's correction and the matter is about to be dropped, but Robert detects that Olwen, despite her verbal acquiescence, is not really convinced. He pushes the women to be honest about their disagreement. In examining the question of how Olwen could have previously seen Martin's cigarette box, each woman reveals that she has been keeping secret the fact that she had visited Martin shortly before his death. At this point, with tensions rising, Maud takes her leave, and soon all the guests depart except Olwen.

The revelations lead Robert, Freda, and Olwen into a deeper discussion of the circumstances surrounding Martin's death. The firm had suffered a theft of £500 the previous year. The group members had assumed that Martin's suicide was an indicator that he had been the thief. However, Olwen now admits that on her final visit to Martin, she learned that he had not stolen the money and further that he believed the thief to be Robert, having been led to that suspicion by Charles. She had not previously mentioned this because she was secretly in love with Robert, which prompts Robert's admission that his and Freda's marriage is unhappy. Robert is shocked both at the accusation that he is the thief and at hearing that Charles had suggested such. Robert snatches the telephone and demands that Gordon and Charles return.

Charles admits that he deliberately led Robert and Martin to suspect one another to cover the fact that he had taken the money himself. But he insists that he was planning to return it within a week and that it was not the cause of Martin's suicide. As others try to blame him for Martin's death, he remains defiant in his insistence that Robert should never have begun the process of revealing secrets. Increasingly angry over having been forced into his confession, Charles admits to having had a personal contempt for Martin and suggests that there are still more secrets being kept that are the reason. Knowing that hers is one of the secrets to which Charles is referring, Freda now confesses that the reason her marriage to Robert has been unhappy is that she was having an affair with Martin and had long been in love with him. A jealous Gordon then proclaims that he too was in love with Martin, and he declares himself to have been a much greater object of Martin's affection than Freda had been. At this point, Betty arrives at the house, indignant at being left out, to discover the men on the brink of fighting.