When first performed in 1925, Noël Coward’s Fallen Angels was labelled vulgar, obscene and degenerate by the critics of the day.

Julia (played in this version by Jenny Seagrove) and Jane (played by Sara Crowe) both had flings with Maurice before they met their husbands. Now, with the passion long gone from their marriages, they are “temporarily unhinged by sex” when the Frenchman resurfaces in their lives.

What was, 89 years ago, a light comedy with a contentious social comment is now simply a light comedy from the past. The three-act play has been faithfully recreated (how nostalgic, the smell of cigarette smoke in a theatre!) and continues to entertain.

In the second act Seagrove and Crowe rapidly drink themselves into a very funny argument that borders on slapstick.

Coward’s original production may have had the darker underbelly of Abigail’s Party but Roy Marsden’s production is not a romp. The characters are from a privileged class that contemporary audiences are quick to laugh at, just as Coward wanted his audience to laugh.

The final act is anti-climatic, underlining the play’s theme that a wife’s duty is to at least give her husband the impression of fidelity.