‘What’s the use of arguing and bickering like this?” a husband asks his wife in Easy Virtue. “It doesn’t lead anywhere.” He’s wrong, of course: it’s this kind of verbal fencing and simmering fury that would lead a 25-year-old Noël Coward to stardom.
Audiences may not know this early work, but in Trevor Nunn’s luxuriant new production they will know exactly where they are. Simon Higlett’s sumptuous drawing-room set comes complete with marble staircase for doleful exits and dramatic entrances and his 1920s outfits are accompanied by some of the best finger waves you’ll see outside Strictly’s Charleston week.
