There is a certain frolicsomeness of intelligence and sensibility we have come to enjoy and expect in Irish born playwrights (Congreve, Sheridan, Shaw, and of course Wilde to name but four). What to the English pre-television mass audience had been a bitter pill of intellectualist theatre, in Irish hands had become sugared with a delight in language, prose at that, which still has the power to charm.

“Throughout, this slick standout NT ensemble relentlessly engages the laughter button with risqué one-liners, and a naughty postcard attitude to tits, bums and other unmentionables so deeply ingrained in the British sense of humour. All were outstanding, but in particular Alicia Davies’ depiction of the spiky but vulnerable Rachel Crabbe caught the eye.”

Few dramatists can lay a claim to be ‘actor proof’, in the sense that the lines in their plays or their plots do all the work and that however much a company sets out to mangle the playwright’s intentions, something wonderful will shine through. Fewer still go the extra mile and demand a particular kind of approach – indeed a particular kind of delivery – in order to unlock whatever treasure may lie within…Peter McKIntosh’s set is the kind you would like to move into as it sets the action firmly in the comfortable home counties.