The burden of Noël Coward’s 1951
country-house comedy is that, rightly or wrongly (probably both), we
expect the social orders to keep to their own. In this case Moxie,
longtime lady’s maid to the dowager Countess of Marshwood, feels unable
to continue in service when her ladyship’s son the earl returns with
his new fiancée, a Hollywood star… who is in fact Moxie’s sister,
estranged since their Brixton childhood. Moxie could not live with
curtseying to her mendacious sister, nor in the end could his lordship
marry the glittering Miranda Frayle if the truth about her became
known. Virtually no-one could live under the same roof as anyone else
in this or that set of circumstances.
The recent resurgence in social sensitivity under the current British
government may lie behind the Theatre Royal Bath’s decision to revive
the piece, which now comes into the West End following a successful
tour. It certainly isn’t the play. Even on its première this was
considered minor Coward, with less of the trademark acid wit and more
flab and filler than one expects, and time has not aged it like a fine
wine or even a fine cheese. The box office draw is the production
rather than the play.
Patricia Hodge is on top form as the Countess, and is well complemented
by Steven Pacey as her nephew and co-conspirator; Pacey showed a couple
of years ago in
Charley’s Aunt
that he has a talent for playing well-to-do gents who have entered
middle age without slowing down or acquiring grace and poise, and his
Hon. Peter is cut from the same cloth. Caroline Quentin puts in a
reliable turn as Moxie, though Rory Bremner in his theatrical début is
still too eager to deploy the kind of tics and quirks that serve him so
well as an impressionist but in this context make him look and sound
less natural than those around him. The production suffers too from the
mixed blessing that is Trevor Nunn’s direction. It’s enough of a
drawback that Nunn’s characteristic skill at making action seem natural
is inimical to giving it any decent pace; add in historical-footnote
newsreel sequences briefing us on 1951, gratuitous dance outbreaks and
other business and the result is that the not-enough of the play goes
on for appreciably too long and to altogether too little effect.
Written for the Financial
Times.