BWW Reviews: CONSTANCE, The Kings Head Theatre, September 16

If the curse of the early 21st century is the sheer volume of distractions, the curse of the early 20th century was the sheer absence of distractions. Those who had time (by virtue of birth into "society" or through money made in business) would assemble for evenings of conversation and singing, good food and fine wines and, naturally, the chance to bicker and bitch about anyone and everyone, as the English obsession with the hierarchy of class gave everyone something to talk about that wasn't the bloody weather! Such evenings spawned the Comedy of Manners, in which exactly the same people who held such evenings visitied the theatre to observe their lives reflected back to them, but with more wit, more drama and more artifice - these comedies were the soap operas of their day, but without quite as much shouting in regional accents.

Constance (in rep at the King's Head Theatre until October 22) is just such a comedy of manners, staged in a space not much larger than the drawing room in which Act One is set. Using his wife's connections as an entree into society and his money as a lure, self-made man, William Daventry assembles a house party that simmers and crackles with the tensions between the guests, mostly done under the veil of acerbic asides or knowing glances. As Daventry, James Vaughan is obnoxiously oily in his lascivious pursuit of a hellfire preacher guest's flirtatious wife, then magnificently misogynistic when the destiny in which he reposed such confidence turns against him. Daventry's wife, the eponymous Constance, is given an innocence by Ellie Beaven that soon turns to a knowingness both of her husband's true character and her own desires. Stealing the show, however, are the ageing couple, the Duchess, Lady Christina (Tamara Hinchco who channels three parts Dame Edna Everage and one part Margaret Thatcher in a bravura display of snobbishness) and retired diplomat, Sir Richard (John Atterbury) who floats above the machinations, bemused at the way the world has turned out, but not entirely displeased with it, so long as he can wear a splendid Tyrolean hat and cape.

Much of the publicity surrounding the play concerns exactly how much of it was "written" by Oscar Wilde, but does it really matter? There's plenty of Wildean epigrams and bon mots and even a tortured poet to complement the mise-en-scene. Undoubtedly, as the programme explains, whatever text Wilde produced has gone through a number of drafts and been brought to the stage through a variety of people making a range of contributions, but is that not always the case with drama? And it is as drama that the work should be judged, rather than as a literary detective story or political football. As such it works, satirising attitudes and mores that still bubble below the surface today and it leaves us with the thought that though money was scorned by those with higher callings or birth, even they knew that it makes the world go round as it ultimately buys happiness or salvation for all but the man most vocal in extolling its virtues. Who knows what Oscar would have made of it all - but the audience's laughter and applause showed their appreciation of an evening full of the kind of wit and repartee that the playbill promised.

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