Private Lives does not poke fun at the way the middle classes actually carried on but, tongue-in-cheek and with ironically raised eyebrows mocked the way they might have behaved in the elegant world created by Mr.Coward. Of course times change and what was once risqué – for example unmarried, albeit divorced people, making love on stage – becomes unremarkable. In director, Tom Attenborough’s, production we find, unsurprisingly, no maturity, but a group of adolescents pretending or at least trying hard to be grown-ups.

Having drunk himself to within a few pints of the grave, Hobson is told by his straight talking doctor that his only salvation lies in the hands of a strong-willed woman, and in a scene reminiscent of Lear’s testing of his daughters, he ultimately agrees to Maggie’s terms which include a partnership with her, by now, successful husband – who has been set up in business by Mrs Hepworth.