Dorothy L Sayers is not primarily known as a playwright. Better celebrated as a novelist, she wrote this battle-of-the-sexes comedy of manners in 1940 and it is through no fault of this production that its laughter lacks bite.
Bestselling romance writer Godfrey (Alan Cox) has left his apparently dull wife, Edith (Leah Whitaker), for a talented young actor, Lydia (Emily Barber). We find the couple languishing in Venice – she is bored and he is blocked in his writing, though insists Lydia still provides creative inspiration. Both embark on secret trips away: Godfrey to demand a divorce from Edith only to discover she has transformed into a celebrity writer, and Lydia to reinvigorate her stage career, which brings her into her own face-off with Edith.
Although it is directed by Tom Littler with punch and flow, and performed by its cast with vigour, it comes to feel like an unchallenging summer play with laughs that are just too gentle, neither quite humorous nor surprising enough.
It certainly offers a sociological insight into a turning point for women of the inter-war years, and there are vivid portraits of the era’s newly emerging independent woman, right down to the play’s two secretaries. But its gender politics on marriage, infidelity and divorce, which must surely have been acerbic in its day, feel fairly toothless now. Godfrey, meanwhile, is so charmless and grating that it is hard to see why Lydia or Edith would ever want him.
The plot goes in an unexpected direction after the first act, which is refreshing, but its double identities and coincidences feel like stock fare and the anodyne ending gives the drama a sense of fading out. There are running jokes about writers and theatre actors but that humour, too, is tame.
Typically for this venue its set, designed by Louie Whitemore, comes drenched in atmosphere, capturing Venice’s romance in the first act and with meticulous period detail in the later London scenes. Best of all are Anett Black’s costumes. If the drama is lacking, Lydia’s trouser-suit and Edith’s beaded cloak at least provide beautiful distraction.
At Jermyn Street theatre, London, until 8 October
