Like any farce, Alan Ayckbourn’s 1969 hit needs strict direction and with Phillip Breen at the helm of this revival, the necessary precision is achieved. An inventive in-the-round staging, which you’d think would be tricky for this kind of comedy, generates theatrical excitement. And, while there’s no pretending the show isn’t dated, there’s a lot of fun and truly wonderful performances to enjoy.
The plot is a pretty standard sex comedy: two troubled marriages, one affair and a third couple drawn into events when they are used as a cover story. The thrills come from a script bursting with observations and misinterpretations arising from characters being literal. The twists are provided by Rob Howell’s set, which creates a ‘shared’ living room for all the action and plays with time and space in the way Ayckbourn intended.
Ayckbourn’s interest in class is present and correct but this is where you note how much times have changed. Frank and Fiona are proper posh, he’s the boss of the two other men, who provide different versions of the middle classes. But the world of work has changed so much, the trio make little sense. Slightly better, the sexual politics in How The Other Half Loves must have been objectionable all along and just get easier to laugh about (although the ‘fun’ around being a maid is a little too much for me).
The production works because of the cast more than the characters.
Ayesha Antoine and Rowan Polonski have a great time as a couple with a new baby. They bring passion to their on-stage relationship; Polonski makes a convincing lothario and it’s great to see Antoine bring such strength to her character. The couple drawn into their mayhem are played in a broader manner by Laura Elsworthy and Adam Gillen. The silly voices get laughs (with social anxiety another incongruously old-fashioned source of fun) but I wonder what the effect would be to have this final couple less exaggerated.
Dorothy Atkinson has a great time as Fiona, a frightful snob whose husband’s scattiness and pedantry have driven her to adultery. Atkinson’s depictions of frustration are consistent highlights. But the show belongs to Roger Allam, as Frank, who makes every line funny and manages to make the script seem easy. The character may be a bluff old fool, but Allam makes him sympathetic as well as infuriating. Frank’s attempts to work out what is going on, his incredulity about the “promiscuous” set he imagines himself among and his misguided attempts to help are all great fun, even if the production is working harder than the play to make it so.
Until 19 September 2026
Photo by Manuel Harlan