The Country Wife

Synopsis

A notorious womaniser spreads the false rumour that a cure for VD has left him impotent but Jack Pinchwife is suspicious and is determined that his wife won't be seduced - an arrogance that proves his undoing!

Our Review:

10 October 2007

The new project of a “quality” West End repertoire at the Haymarket – a bold and welcome initiative under the artistic direction of Jonathan Kent – has got off to an impressive, slightly over-strenuous, start in Kent’s handsomely louche production of William Wycherley’s filthy and diverting comedy The Country Wife.

This is really an Almeida or National production masquerading as a “West End gets hip” effort, with outlandish designs by Paul Brown, shiny period silk frock coats barging up against jeans and winkle-pickers on lifts, and a card school with erotic undertow frankly staged as an orgy by candelabra light; a bunch of grapes is lasciviously chewed in the lap of the supposedly impotent stud, Horner.

Horner is a man who cheerfully pretends he’s lost his sex drive – somewhere in France, apparently – in order to play the field more easily and more widely. Toby Stephens is first seen posing in the altogether, bottom out, leering at the audi...

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Latest User Review

Ray Green - 7 January 2008:

Coming to a close.....And not before time. Rambling and going nowhere....

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