LAURA Wade’s “radical reimagining” of Somerset Maugham’s 1926 play The Constant Wife opened at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford last year, and is now on a UK tour that will end with performances on a Cunard transatlantic crossing on the Queen Mary 2.  The tour is at Poole’s Lighthouse this week, moving on to Malvern before its final landbound performances at Bath. At Stratford it starred Rose Leslie, and on tour the title role is taken by EastEnders favourite Kara Tointon.

Set firmly in the Art Deco period, this new version gives set and costume designer Anna Fleischle full rein, and the elegant (and adaptable), Eltham Palace-esque rooms are the perfect framing for beautiful clothes and enviable decoration. (May I have the lamp, please, after its trip to New York?)

Wade has re-arranged Maugham’s three-act play by turning the chronology around, creating an on-stage prequel that explains the dynamics of the marriage of Constance Middleton and her straying husband John, and how the realistic Constance manipulates them to her own independent advantage. If this Tamara Harvey directed play does seem dated at times, it cleverly opens the eyes of a 21st century audience to the realties of life for women, even well-to-do women, such a relatively short time ago. Constance was, in her way, a trailblazer, even if her unmarried sister Martha (Amy Vicary-Smith) is more evidently radical. They are contrasted against their mother Mrs Culver – played by Sara Crowe wringing the maximum humour from the text – a woman who believes that men are constitutionally unfaithful and must be not only excused and cherished, but gratefully allowed their tantrums and diversions (where are you, Mary Anne Trump?)

Alex Mugnaioni makes a charming and devoted Bernard, and Philip Rham’s Bentley comes from the butlering shadows to create a pivotal character in the story. I needed to believe that Constance and her surgeon husband John had had a good marriage – but I didn’t.

GP-W

 

Footnote.  The Constant Wife is at Poole until 2nd May, and at Bath Theatre Royal from 11th to 16th May