Theatre review: The Circle

A play full of references to the ravages of ageing could be taken as a bit of an on-the-nose way for a new Artistic Director to introduce himself to the Orange Tree's regular audience, but Tom Littler's debut production seems to have gone down well enough this afternoon. During Paul Miller's tenure the theatre helped subsidise its risky new writing scheduling with regular crowd-pleasing revivals, with a particular focus on Shaw and Rattigan. For his opening salvo Littler goes for Somerset Maugham, and the 1921 romantic comedy-drama The Circle. Arnold (Pete Ashmore) never really knew his mother, who left his father Clive (Clive Francis) and ran away with his best friend. But Arnold's wife Elizabeth (Olivia Vinall) has learnt that Lady Kitty (Jane Asher) and Lord Hughie Porteus (Nicholas Le Prevost) have returned to England after thirty years in France.

She insists that her husband make at least some gesture towards his mother, so they invite the pair to stay a few days. Clive, who lives in a cottage nearby, is told about it so that he'll stay away; instead he visits more than ever, to see how his ex-wife's big romantic adventure worked out.

Inevitably the relationship has lost some of its spark, and the pair are a regular grumpy old couple, but with an added edge of anxiety for Kitty: Unlike Clive, who granted her a divorce, Hughie's wife never did, so they weren't able to remarry. Without the security of marriage, the two have only their feelings to keep them together, and Kitty financially looked-after.

Adding to the drama is the fact that history looks to be repeating itself: Three years into her marriage, Elizabeth feels unappreciated by Arnold, and has clearly fallen for their other house-guest, the dashing Teddie (Chirag Benedict Lobo,) who wants her to come with him when he returns to Malaysia where he's stationed. So there's plenty of plot going on and a lot of situations to build comedy out of, much of it coming from the two older men - Le Prevost has a Prince Philip grumble to his impatient mutterings, while Francis has a twinkle in his eye as he goads what used to be love's young dream into showing how it all worked out for them.

Rattigan and Shaw were reliably old-fashioned but could also be equally relied on to bring something that still resonated in the modern day. Maugham's play does have some fairly progressive views for its time - there's an underlying theme about the rights of women having made significant steps but not enough, and the way for a certain class of women marriage for financial security continued to constrain their freedom. But there is an ultimate feeling that the safest way to get along is for them to resign themselves to the situation and not rock the boat too much.

There's also a casually imperialist thread running through the play that's hard to ignore - before the elopement scandal Hughie had been tipped as a possible Prime Minister, and the way he might have doled out countries for his friends to run is used for humour, but not the particularly self-aware type. In this context the casting of an actual South Asian actor as Teddie, the man off running the colonies, feels like a considered choice and a very successful one. The Circle has entertainment value, a brimful of Asher and sparky dialogue, but Littler hasn't quite blown off the cobwebs from it. Still, as statements of intent by new Artistic Directors go, I've seen much less promising ones.

The Circle by Somerset Maugham is booking until the 17th of June at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.