REVIEW: Fallen Angels, Theatre Royal, Bath

Delicious as a salted almond, aphrodisiac as the oysters that the golfing widows Jane and Julia so relish in their drunken dinner together, this is a wonderfully uplifting production.

Noel Coward said the most important ingredients of a play are 'life, death, sex, food and money'. There's plenty of all that here! The entire second act is given over to the female friends, (who are married to two dull chaps) getting drunk on alcohol and their shared mutual passion for the long-lost Maurice DuClos, who seems about to reappear after fifteen years.

The piece was daring enough when first written, and this raunchy revival under director Michael Rudman keeps something of the powder-keg sense of the original.

Frances De La Tour (Jane Banbury) and Felicity Kendal (Julia Sterroll) are quite dazzling as Noel Coward's elegantly bored chums whipping each other into a frenzy over past passions. No wonder they are given pointed looks by Saunders, the multi-talented maid (an infectiously comic performance by Tilly Tremayne).

The swooping, predatory figure of Jane stalks her friend's Mayfair apartment like a randy black panther at the prospect of their French lover's return.

Under the influence of more than enough champagne, Julia's more kittenish elegance soon degenerates into spitting venom and rolling on the sofa, while Jane's solemnly careful attempts to sit down on a wandering chair, or to take off her shoes while still standing in them, are simply hilarious.

This play is a showcase for female talent and all three actresses excel in a delightful combination of physical and verbal theatre.

The long-deferred entrance in the last act of Maurice himself (Stephen Greif) and his smooth confrontation with the boring but safe husbands (James Woolley and Eric Carte) is no anti-climax. Such is the clever control of Noel Coward over his material that we are kept intrigued by the outcome. He leaves us no nearer to an answer to the question he raises what does being 'in love' have to do to the comfortable companionship of a long-standing marriage? And don't let's get too serious, old thing does it matter?

With all the panache of dramatic 1930s costumes and an opulent set, this is bound for the West End. Catch it while it's in Bath, for pure entertainment's sake. Fallen Angels continues at the theatre until Saturday October 14.

Sue le Bond