Laura Wade, part of the creative engine behind the successful television adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals, turns her attention to a 1926 play by W Somerset Maugham and the results of this century-spanning collaboration are sharp, fresh and feminist, not to mention very witty.
The opening scene has Constance’s mother Mrs Culver (Kate Burton) and sister Martha (Amy Morgan, excellent) engaged in a family flap. They know that John has been having an affair with Constance’s friend Marie-Louise (Emma McDonald) and there is heated debate about whether or not she should be told.
Kate Burton, left, and Rose Leslie on stage in Stratford (Photo: Johan Persson)When Constance eventually finds out, she does not react in the way that anyone expects. “My response is my own,” she says firmly and thus follows a pleasingly twisty exploration of marriage and fidelity, as Leslie shows a woman quietly yet determinedly doing things her own way.
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There are occasional moments of unsubtlety more befitting Downton Abbey than Somerset Maugham and it could all be usefully wrapped up more swiftly than it is. Still, we never grow tired of gazing longingly at Anna Fleischle’s sumptuous set and costumes and I defy any woman this summer not to desire the “scandalous beach trousers” that Constance packs in her suitcase.
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