Maggie Steed Opens Playhouse Season in Constant Wife

Maggie Steed leads the cast in Somerset Maugham’s classic comedy, The Constant Wife which opens the Spring/Summer 2011 season at Salisbury Playhouse.

Constance Middleton is a smart and self-possessed wife of a top London surgeon. While rumours circulate of her husband’s infidelity with her best friend, Marie-Louise, she purposefully maintains the fiction upheld by all around her – including her imperious mother – that she has no idea of the affair. However, when confronted by Marie-Louise’s jealous husband, Constance reveals an interesting and unconventional strategy to turn this most unfortunate of situations to her own advantage.

For this sumptuous revival of Maugham’s 1927 comedy, Artistic Director Philip Wilson is reunited with the design team behind the Playhouse’s highly-successful productions of Private Lives (2010) and The Winslow Boy (2009).

Maggie Steed returns to the Playhouse as the imperious mother, Mrs Culver. Maggie won the 2010 TMA Best Actress Award for her appearance in West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Hay Fever and last appeared at Salisbury Playhouse in 2005 in the sell-out production of Relative Values.

Set in the smart Twenties drawing room of a Harley Street townhouse, the glistening art deco set has been created by Designer Colin Falconer, with Lighting Design by Chris Davey.

The cast also includes Susie Trayling as Constance, Sophie Roberts, Saskia Butler, James Clarkson, Claudia Elmhirst, David Michaels, Dyfrig Morris and Simon Thorpe.