Fallen Angels

Synopsis

When it first opened in 1925 Fallen Angels caused a shock-horror reaction in the press because the two female characters openly admitted to having had a pre-marital affair with the same man. Julia and Jane are old friends. Both are comfortably married, both are embarking upon middle age with a little regret, and both have a secret past, in fact each of them has had an affair with dashing Frenchman Maurice some years before. Now it seems Maurice is back in town and with their husbands safely despatched to the golf course, Julia and Jane embark upon an evening of alcohol-infused anticipation as they are torn between the realities of comfortable domesticity and their passionate memories of Maurice. As tongues are loosened, it seems that friendship and rivalry aren't very far apart.

Our Review:

2 November 2000

The opening of Noel Coward's Fallen Angels at the Apollo Theatre puts it briefly cheek-by-jowl with another Coward piece, Brief Encounter (based on the screenplay he wrote for the 1946 film classic) at the Lyric, and is easily both the better play and production, though that isn't saying much. For one thing, it is at least a stage original, revealing genuine craft and comedy in the writing, and skill and sophistication in the playing, neither of which are qualities much in evidence next door.

Sometimes scintillating rather than sentimental, it is the kind of thing you can happily take your grandparents to. Anyone under 50, however, might consider it a mite old-fashioned, even if, in its day (it was originally produced in 1925), it proved controversial for suggesting that middle-aged women might crave the fantasy of a sex life outside of their dull, conventional marriages.

It provides a tour-de-force for the two women at its centre...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com - 6 April 2001:

Don't believe them, it's crap. Kendal is woeful and not even FDT's valient efforts can lift proceedigns....

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