Brighton Year-Round 2026
The Constant Wife
David Pugh and Cunard, Royal Shakespeare Company
Genre: Adaptation, classical, Comedy, Drama, Feminist Theatre, LGBT, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Maugham’s frequently revived. So why would he need his 1926 The Constant Wife adapted for its centenary, here starring Kara Tointon? This is though Laura Wade, whose Home I’m Darling toured recently, who wrote Posh and famously completed and adapted Jane Austen’s The Watsons for Chichester in 2019. Helmed by the RSC’s co-artistic director Tamara Harvey, the RSC production of The Constant Wife arrives at the Theatre Royal Brighton till February 28. It sold every seat at Stratford. It should here too.
An outstanding revival and adaptation, a faultless cast, an award-winning set too. Brighton has been lucky in its last three productions. This though is the gem. Outstanding.
Review
In 1908 Somerset Maugham famously had four dramas simultaneously play in th West End. It’s still a record: only Noel Coward came close with three. And Maugham’s frequently revived (not least by the Orange Tree), including this play. So why would he need his 1926 The Constant Wife adapted for its centenary, here starring Kara Tointon? This is though Laura Wade, whose Home I’m Darling toured recently, who wrote Posh and famously completed and adapted Jane Austen’s The Watsons for Chichester in 2019. Helmed by the RSC’s co-artistic director Tamara Harvey, the RSC production of The Constant Wife arrives at the Theatre Royal Brighton till February 28. It sold every seat at Stratford. It should here too.
“I can’t help it if you were careless with your cigarette case. I was extremely careful with your heart.” A suavely brilliant woman discovers her husband’s infidelity. She proceeds to take more care to cover it up than they do, and confront it much later on her own terms when she’s won financial independence. It’s perhaps Maugham’s finest play, which in its original has the protagonist become a designer sensation.
Yet Wade, constant to Maugham has improved on it, though maintaining Maugham’s premiss that only financial independence can liberate women. Cutting down the first act with its expositions she drops it in the middle of the second act, so it appears as an extended flashback. There’s added wit and pointed performative references to this as a play, which now lasts two-hours-fifteen with interval. And another one, also The Constant Wife one couple are continually leaving for. Act Three’s opening has Tointon order her on-stage sister to reprise the fiendish plot for the returning audience; she does so with such panache that everyone laughs. Again.
Constance Middleton (Kara Tointon) is wholly in command of stage and story, delivering silken insouciance yet saving Constance’s real emotions for one surprising confidante. About her the satellites of well-meaning and well-deceiving (as they think) friends and admirers twirl. And twitter. There’s Harley Street husband John Middleton (Tim Delap, presenting clever but self-deluding, with shallow appetites), always called to his surgery downstairs. Constance’s incomprehensibly-chosen friend, the superficial, parasitical but somehow likeably foolish Marie-Louise Durham (Gloria Onitiri, nicely over the top). Then Constance’s interfering single sister Martha Culver (Amy Vicary-Smith) who runs a fashion shop. And traditional Mrs Culver (a deliciously amoral Sara Crowe).
Crowe provides a star turn as a radically amoral pragmatist, with the “men will be men” routine that shocks her unmarried daughter. She often gets some of the funniest lines attacking feminism from a faintly absurd angle even in 1926. Happily as Crowe shows, she’s shrewd and can embrace change. The warmest scenes are often between Tointon and Crowe when they understand each other, or rather when the mother catches up. Perhaps the most revealing of all though are those with Constance and manservant Bentley (Philip Rham). Bentley’s the anchor who understands all, dispatches loyally; and the pair share secrets with a moment of affect and poignancy. Rham’s unflappable gravitas is leavened with a twinkling final glance shared with Tointon.
To these are later added Constance’s admirer of 15 years ago, recently back from Japan. Bernard Kersal (Alex Mugnaioni) whom Constance nearly married, crosses gallantry and good sense with a puppyish devotion to Constance; liable to break out. Mugnaioni makes him noble without being more than a whiff absurd. Mortimer Durham (a blustery Jules Brown, polished as empire furniture) gets shortest shrift as Marie-Louise’s bamboozled husband; whom Constance has to rescue from truth.
Anna Fleischle’s set alone purrs elegance. A 1920s Deco drawing room with moving parts so the upstage wall décor shifts back then forward in time (the later period more spartan, reflecting Constance’s new-found flair). It reveals a staircase when Sally Ferguson’s lighting shifts just a little. This is an award-winning set. How Fleischle’s decor with colour-matching chairs and chaise-longs match hers and Cat Fuller’s supremely elegant costumes is a thing of wonder. People talk of buttons and cut of dresses. Erté was mentioned.
Featuring original jazz music composed by Jamie Callum, an original melody cheekily swerves past Gershwin’s ‘Embraceable You’ just at the right moment. That’s after Rham’s Bentley has played the main theme on the piano placed as focal point stage-right. And before Claire Windsor’s sound design takes up the fuller jazz ensemble.
Wade’s ingenious re-structuring and pointing up Maugham’s wit is so sympathetic it might have won plaudits from the master himself. It’s certainly more rejuvenating than the gland treatment Maugham later underwent. Wade’s ending though reminds one of how Maugham softened his short stories for film, when the screen couldn’t take their risqué originals. Unlike Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the door doesn’t slam. But here it closes, for a while, even more softly. Maugham’s solution is radical. Wade’s feminism is subtler and so clever you might hear Maugham cheer. An outstanding revival and adaptation, a faultless cast, an award-winning set too. Brighton has been lucky in its last three productions. This though is the gem. Outstanding.
Understudies: Sam Flint, Jocasta King, Jane Lambert
Associate Director Francesca Murray-Fuentes, Associate Designer Angelica Rush, Movement Director Anne-Lunette Deakin-Foster. Production Manager Blair Halliday, Costume Supervisor Ilona Karas, Casting Directors Sarah Bird and Marc Frankum CDG, Company Manager Catryn Fray, DSM Kelly Evans, ASM Sasha Reece, Technical ASM Cormac O’Brien, Wardrobe Manager Rob Bicknell. Photo Credits: Mihaela Bodlovic.
