'How the Other Half Loves' review — Alan Ayckbourn's hilarious farce is a bravura technical feat

Read our review of How the Other Half Loves, starring Roger Allam, now in performances at the Old Vic to 19 September.

Summary

• How the Other Half Loves is revived at the Old Vic
• The Alan Ayckbourn comedy centres on two dinner parties thrown by suspicious spouses
• Roger Allam stars as clueless snob Frank Foster
• Dorothy Atkinson is terrific as his withering wife Fiona

If laughter is the best medicine, how wonderful that Old Vic audiences are now getting a welcome dose of the 1969 farce How the Other Half Loves, last seen on a London stage 10 years ago. As well as being utterly hilarious and at times shockingly painful, this early work – which clinched the success of untiring stalwart Alan Ayckbourn (the 87-year-old has written 92 full-length plays to date) – remains in robustly good health.

Velvet-voiced Roger Allam (The Thick of It, Endeavour), a bit of a later-life sex symbol and fast becoming a national treasure, stars as snobbish Frank Foster, who's totally clueless about his wife Fiona's affair with his employee, Bob Phillips. Bob's unfulfilled and rebellious wife Teresa (a feisty Ayesha Antoine) is stuck at home with baby Benjamin when she's not firing off angry letters to The Guardian.

To cover up the liaison, Fiona and Bob drag in a third couple, socially anxious Mary and gawky William Featherstone. There are great comic turns from scene-stealing Laura Elsworthy, who should patent Mary's dead-eyed stare, and Adam Gillen as the controlling William. He constantly slaps Mary's wrist and there are gasps from the audience when he disturbingly says, "Do you realise, Mrs Foster, the hours I've put into that woman?".

Dorothy Atkinson is terrific as Fiona with her withering, sidelong glances and ironic overuse of the word "Darling". Frank can't remember, find or fix anything, which drives Fiona mad. However, it's touching how Frank carefully covers up his disappointment with their relationship while, rather heartbreakingly, Fiona just wants Frank to notice her.

Ayckbourn cleverly plays with time and space, as the action in the Phillips' and Fosters' households overlaps on a shared set. The highlight is when both couples host dinner parties with the Featherstones on consecutive nights, but they're staged simultaneously. We see the unfortunate guests at both parties at the same time, swivelling round frantically in their chairs from one to the other – a technical feat deftly directed by Phillip Breen in an in-the-round staging, just as the original production was played in Scarborough.

Designer Rob Howell's loud, swirly fashion choices (don't miss Fiona's hideous green skirt and puffy white blouse in the second act) displayed against a background of wicker furniture and bright dial-up phones cements us in the late 1960s. That period mirth is effectively juxtaposed with the frustrations of trapped middle-class folk in suburban England – a disease still requiring urgent treatment today. Luckily, Ayckbourn prescribes a restorative cure with this invigorating evening's entertainment.

How the Other Half Loves is at the Old Vic to 19 September. Book How the Other Half Loves tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: How the Other Half Loves (Photos by Manuel Harlan)