UNLIKE Noel Coward's 1922 classic Hay Fever, which captures and celebrates a quintessential Englishness while simultaneously satirising its delicious awfulness, this 1951 comedy Relative Values lacks the pace, incision and sparkle of the earlier work.
By 1956, Coward's frothy plays had been superseded by the gritty working-class dramas of John Osborne and the other 'Angry Young Men'.
This play features the impact of two Hollywood stars threatening to wreak havoc on the staid predictability of the aristocratic Marshwood family.
The American characters inject energy and drama to the script, while the English characters bray and fret about protocol. Most of the Playhouse audience enjoyed it immensely.
The play runs until February 26.
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