The Good Soldier is a powerful story, well told. It is set in 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War and traces the disintegration of two seemingly perfect marriages.

Concealing the lies and infidelities which shore up an apparently respectable surface is ultimately self destructive.

The story revolves around one American couple and one English couple, who are great friends until it is revealed that the American wife has been having an affair with the English husband.

The story is told by the rather naive American husband John Dowell (Jonathan Forbes), the only one of the four not to know what had been going on.

The drama is adapted from a novel of the same name and, at first glance, is not a likely subject for a stage play as the couples’ story is told in a series of flashbacks.

However, this is overcome by the use of effective lighting to shift the attention of the audience and a minimalist stage.

The novel’s original name was The Saddest Story and the subject matter is bleak. But this is to belie what is at times a very funny look at life and had the audience laughing out loud several times.

Forbes is convincing as the well-meaning, put-upon Dowell, as is Jennifer Woodward, who plays the part of his wife.

Flora Montgomery plays the complex part of the English wife who still talks of her love for her husband, even though it is revealed that the couple have not spoken in private for 13 years.

John Hopkins, who plays her adulterous husband, portrays what’s wrong with the English upper classes with sympathy and credibility.

Dowell tries to understand what went on and why he was so wrong about the ‘decent’ English couple, but he acknowledges his confusion.

It is a mark of the drama’s success that the audience is not similarly confused but enjoys a first rate drama.