All’s fair in love… or is it? William Boyd’s play examines the ironies lurking behind the respectable façade of marriage, where frustrations can bubble up and express themselves through seemingly innocuous rows about the mundane – and raw truths can sometimes spew out like lava, scorching those nearest, and dearest.

Boyd adapted two Anton Chekhov short stories when writing his first play Longing which was produced in 2013. The Argument also has echoes of Chekhov’s powerful ability to illustrate inner emptiness, of longing for the other.

Here, the three-year-old marriage of a comfortably-off young white middleclass couple suddenly falls apart after trendy husband Pip confesses to his smart, Oxbridge-educated wife Meredith that he’s had an affair.  Friends and family find themselves drawn into the epicentre of the row and in doing so expose their own deeper emotions and attitudes, both to each other and themselves. 

Boyd himself says he thinks The Argument will not only make people laugh but get people thinking about their own experiences. That is certainly true. There are some very funny lines to enjoy in this narrative, and we will all have experienced moments that resonate.

Felicity Kendall, as Meredith’s mum Chloë, leads an impressive and highly professional cast. Kendall is always worth the ticket price – here, if anything, her part is more supportive than lead, but perhaps all the better for it – a small masterclass in understatement, simmering discontent and desire for control. Rupert Vansittart plays her husband, retired orthopaedic surgeon Frank, with his own record of marital betrayals shadowing the managed concord of his relationship with his wife.  Vansittart has the funniest lines of the piece when Frank advises the errant Pip to hang on to his marriage.

Underscoring the main argument are friends Jane, played by Sarah Earnshaw and Tony, played by Esh Alladi. One cannot help but feel Boyd is using their particular quarrel to vent a personal dislike of the habit of many millennials ‘uplifting’ the end of sentences to sound like constant questioning. Earnshaw’s vitriol is the most convincing of the night, but I wouldn’t want to downplay Alice Orr-Ewing’s excellent portrayal of the suave, erudite Meredith, an entirely convincing depiction of a sophisticated woman with her own secrets to keep. 

Simon Harrison as Pip doesn’t really break sweat in his appeal to Meredith to take him back. If anything, the play lacks the time to flesh out Pip’s character adequately, all the action taking place without an interval over not much more than an hour. Some of Pip’s outbursts seem more visceral than they need, and seem to come from a darker place than his personality implies.

Simon Higlett’s set is beautifully crafted – a comfortable living room segues into patioed dining room then scruffy flat with minimum fuss and nice attention to detail, while Christopher Luscombe’s direction brings a natural flow to the proceedings.

Ultimately, Boyd reminds us that our emotional lives can act like hand grenades, that sometimes, it is only when we explode the truth will out.   ★★★☆☆     Simon Bishop   14^th August 2019

Photo by Manuel Harlan