The Circle at Orange Tree Theatre assessment
Hovering someplace between Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde, this comedy of bourgeois manners set in 1920 is rooted in actual dilemmas confronted by girls on the verge of liberation.
Former society magnificence Lady ‘Kitty’ Catherine (Jane Asher), the errant spouse of Clive Champion-Cheney (Clive Francis), ran off with an impoverished Lord ‘Hughie’ Poretous (Nicolas Le Provost).
Many years later, she arrives on the household house to see the son she deserted, Arnold (Pete Ashmore), an uptight MP with a eager curiosity in inside design whose marriage to Elizabeth (Olivia Vinall) is beginning to unravel.
When Arnold’s finest good friend and houseguest Edward (Chirag Benedict Lobo), begins making romantic overtures to Elizabeth, historical past seems to be repeating itself.
Through dialogue that sparkles and stings, Maugham exhibits the improbability of perfection in romantic liaisons whereas on the identical time granting license to those that pursue them.
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Channeling Raine Spencer en path to Lady Bracknell, Asher maintains an ethereal cynicism all through.
As her ex-husband who has subsequently indulged himself with squadrons of younger girls, Francis is witty and roguish, goading his rival over being trapped in marriage to a lady whose “soul is as thickly rouged as her face.”
Performed within the spherical with minimal furnishings and most frockery, it’s an impeccably poised manufacturing.
In his first manufacturing as incoming Artistic Director, Tom Littler conveys Maugham’s civilised subversiveness with confidence and magnificence.
It guarantees nicely for the longer term.