Writer: Laura Wade, after W. Somerset Maugham
Director: Tamara Harvey
Somerset Maugham’s “daring” comedy was first staged 100 years ago. Now it comes up fresh as paint in Laura Wade’s adaptation, on tour after originally being staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. We know that Wade places the confrontation with deceived husband Mortimer much earlier in the play and that some of Maugham’s original satire on double standards has been “softened”: is the final emphasis on forgiveness Maugham’s or Wade’s?
Wade also removes one character – the taste in 1926 was for rather longer plays than in 2026 – and this new version twists and turns in Tamara Harvey’s brisk production, Constance’s life choices always springing a new surprise. The production is stylish, too, Anna Fleischle’s see-through set a witty complement to Fleischle and Cat Fuller’s elegant costumes – and Jamie Cullum’s music is catchy and mysterious by turns.
As re-shaped by Wade, the play begins with Constance’s mother and her sister Martha in a furious argument about whether to tell Constance about the affair her husband, John Middleton, is having with her best friend Marie-Louise: Martha feels it is her right to know, the more worldly Mrs. Culver puts all morality to one side and sees no reason to disturb her daughter’s happiness. Things escalate with the furious arrival of Maria-Louise’s husband, Mortimer, with accusations of adultery.
Then we turn to one year previously. Constance returns from taking their daughter to boarding school to catch John and Marie-Louise in flagrante. Concealing her presence from them, she has to decide what to do. Every move surprises. After a brief cry in which she is consoled by the butler, Bentley, she makes him her only confidant (class distinction being another taboo Maugham jousted against) and telephones her interior designer sister to accept the job she had previously turned down.
After that we resume in the present, with Constance’s long-time admirer, Bernard, on long leave from his work in Japan, waiting to take her to the theatre (to see The Constant Wife!) while Constance joins the others in lying to reduce Mortimer to an apologetic withdrawal.
It’s at this point that Maugham really cocks a snook at convention. For a start all the assembled company round on Constance for deceiving them for the past year while she points out that she has enjoyed the fact that John’s guilt has made him unusually acquiescent and attentive. And so the revelations go on, perhaps the most telling being that Constance has earned £1,400 by working and proceeds to pay John rent for her accommodation, financial independence being the only real independence. She also persuades him that her upcoming holiday in Italy will not be alone, but in the company of Bernard, on his way back to Japan.
The mixture of sparkling wit and subversive commentary reminds us of a much more frequently performed playwright, Noel Coward, and is put over with relish and an awareness of just when to go over the top by Harvey’s excellent cast among whom Kara Tointon shines as Constance. She brings out the reality beneath the poise and glamour of life as the wife of a successful doctor and, in her cool assessment of her situation, seems to have found the perfect solution for a married couple who love each other, but are no longer in love.
The men skilfully offer variants on buttoned up emotions that, in the case of Tim Delap’s John, gradually loosen and fray as his version of the world is exposed as wishful thinking. The women are much more fun from the outset, Amy Vicary-Smith loud and impetuous as Martha and – the other outstanding performance alongside Tointon – the understudy Jane Lambert making much of Mrs Culver’s knowing cynicism.
Runs until 31st January 2026, before continuing on tour
