CRITICAL consensus holds that E M Forster’s A Room With a View marked a dynamic, enlightening time in British history.

While it might seem generalistic to retrospectively identify a positive shift in the national consciousness, Forster’s emphasis on selfimprovement through education was an undeniably commendable attitude.

Victorian conventions were slowly giving way to more liberal Edwardian notions in the early 20th century, an idealistic tug of war which can be demonstrated and symbolised through the role of women in society.

On one hand, unmarried women were still stigmatised and derided as spinsters. At the same time, the Suffragettes were fighting for gender equality.

A thousand women campaigning for suffrage were arrested before the First World War.

This figure might seem shocking to us now, but actress Felicity Kendal – who plays the spinster Charlotte Bartlett in A Room With a View in Brighton – is quick to point out that the social conditioning of women meant any rebellion was clamped down upon.

“Forster was dealing with the ways that womens’ lives were influenced by the way society controls and sees them. There was restriction beyond belief. You had to be married and you couldn’t be a spinster. You couldn’t be a single mother.”

The former star of sitcom The Good Life adds that elements of Forster’s novel and message are still pertinent now.

“We have different problems now and different situations but it’s still relevant in that women are always trying to do the right thing and be respected and accepted. We still have pressures to behave in a certain way.

“There is still a huge amount of prejudice. To this day, people say, ‘oh she’s had five husbands, therefore she’s a bit of a girl’. That kind of thing has not changed – labelling people rather than focusing on who they are.”

In the book, Kendal’s character Charlotte is tasked with chaperoning her younger cousin Lucy – a so-called English Rose – on a tour of Italy. When Lucy starts to mingle with the lower class Emerson family, Charlotte’s protective instinct kicks in. After she sights her cousin kissing George Emerson, Charlotte whisks Lucy away to Rome.

It would be easy to deem Charlotte a mildly villainous figure for this – effectively obstructing natural attraction and potential love – but Kendal opposes the idea that her character’s actions are unforgivable. She insists that Charlotte “does not look down upon the Emersons”, at least consciously.

“I think she reacts in a way that she sees as her line of duty. Her young cousin is her responsibility, her charge. It is very important to her that she does not let the side down, or let her cousin be embarrassed or upset.

“It was the way society was back then – she is simply following the rules. I don’t think she’s imposing anything.”

The plot thickens when the Emersons move to the same Surrey village which holds the estate of Lucy and Charlotte’s family. As Lucy is drawn to George all over again, Charlotte’s sensibility eventually starts to shift.

“From a position of fear, she actually goes in the complete opposition direction and enables Lucy to have a life,” says Kendal. “If anything, she negotiates for the future having come from a position of total fear. She makes a huge difference to her cousin’s life.”

In a time when “people would get married through circumstance, despite not being suited to each other at all,” as Kendal puts it, “at the heart of the novel is people choosing love against all the odds”.

A Room With a View, Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Monday, October 10, to Saturday, October 15, 7.45pm (2.30pm matinee on Thurs and Sat), from £20, 0844 8717650