Trevor Nunn’s deft, delightful Noël Coward revival

Noël Coward described his 1924 play as a comedy in the shape of a tragedy. Trevor Nunn, returning to the newly refurbished theatre where his directing career began, adroitly manages Coward’s entertaining combination of both forms to skewer hypocrisy and arouse sympathy.

Larita, a witty, beautiful, mondaine divorcée, whose natural habitats are Paris, New York and Cannes, makes the mistake of marrying for love. John (Joseph Potter) a charming, puppyish youth, takes her from the south of France back to his chilly upper-middle-class home in the English countryside (Georgian sweeping staircase, large French windows giving on to lawns and folly in Simon Higlett’s design). This is her tragedy.

John’s mother and two sisters are aghast. They live within the confines of a soulless religiosity that insists on correct social behaviours but lacks their faith’s motivating force – love. That is their tragedy.

The clash between the two world views sparks the witty comic exchanges for which Coward became known. The ironic double-edge of the play’s title is gradually revealed. The “easy virtue” being condemned is not sexual liberty but glib, self-congratulatory morality that follows form while lacking substance.

John’s father Colonel Whittaker (Michael Praed) is the only person in the household to show any kindness to Larita (Alice Orr-Ewing). Described by his priggish, judgmental elder daughter Marion (Imogen Elliott) as “a dog in his day”, he ruefully recognises the hollowness in place of a heart in his family. He acknowledges to Marion that her mother “stood by me through my various lapses from grace with splendid fortitude”, but admits he distrusts “the motive”. The only motives Marion can propose are “loyalty and affection”; love is absent from her reckoning.

In a well-balanced cast of 14, Orr-Ewing’s cool, willowy Larita and Greta Scacchi’s frowzy, becardiganed Mrs Whittaker counterpoint their characters with devastating precision. They are outstanding in their roles as opposites who generate the dynamics of the action.

Easy Virtue is at the Arts Theatre Cambridge until 7 March

Photograph by Richard Hubert Smith