Deliciously witty, sparky, tongue-in-cheek and coquettish.

The Constant Wife is all of these things. Kara Tointon is all of these things. The dapper dialogue is all of these things.

And I liked it very, very much.

1927. Constance is a very unhappy woman. “Nonsense” says her mother “she eats well, sleeps well, dresses well and she’s losing weight. No woman can be unhappy in those circumstances.” Constance is the perfect wife and mother, and her husband is as devoted to her as he is to his mistress, who just happens to be her best friend.

Adapted by Olivier Award-winner Laura Wade (Home, I’m Darling; TV’s Rivals) from W Somerset Maugham’s glittering comedy written in 1926, the scene was set immediately and whilst the house lights were still up, a rather splendid gentleman entered stage left (our esteemed Butler, Bentley (Philip Rahm)). He seemed surprised to see us, but, unflustered, he threw us a nod of quick acceptance, before taking his seat at the piano and playing the opening strains of the play’s overture…and before you could say ‘bravo’, gave us a knowing and firm nod as he left the stage, and we were off…

The Constant Wife is a play within a play and is gloriously meta. Our heroine (and I do mean heroine – at least I think I do, it’s all very unclear to me whether I do consider her heroic – is she a feminist by today’s standards and, if she isn’t, does that matter as they’re yet to exist in this 1920s world) – I digress – our heroine is, in real time, preparing to attend a play – The Constant Wife, with her platonic friend and companion, the archetypally awkward Bernard (Alex Mugnaioni) – a play about marriage, fidelity, infidelity…

For Constance (Kara Tointon) is unknowingly living out the plot herself. I say unknowingly but there’s where the twists and turns and classic elements of a farce come into play. For her husband, John (Tim Delap) is having a scandalous affair with her best friend, Marie-Louise (Jocasta King), herself married to Mortimer (Jules Brown).

Her mother (Sara Crowe) and sister Martha (Amy Vicary-Smith) both know – the latter at pains to tell her poor, ignorant sister, the former, seeing male infidelity as very much par for the course and, to be perfectly fair, the fault of the wife. But we soon learn in Act I as, by the power of lighting, deft movement of actors and sets, we travel back in time 12 months, that poor, poor wife in fact very much knows about the affair and so we very much have a farce on our hands. And a delightful one at that.

With clipped tones, cheeky yet charming one-liners and double entendres (“I hear you’re taking my wife up the West End”) we’re taken on a journey of polite revelations – the wife in this menage-a-trois stays very much one step ahead of the game, deciding to use the indiscretions of her husband and best friend very much to her advantage. As at the same time she faces empty nest syndrome, decides to embrace her status of self, putting her wife and mother roles on the back-burner, and (much to her mother’s puzzlement) go into business with her sister and earn a wage. Gloria Gaynor eat your heart out.

Back to the meta of it all. It’s Act II (of our play) and Constance and Bernard note that they’ve already missed Act 1 of their play, yet Constance laments that even when privy to the first act of a production, she struggles to recall what she’s already seen once she returns from the interval. If only there was a helpful recap. And as, one cue, sister Martha launches into a retrospective of their own fast unravelling revelations of events of that evening, we again delight in the knowing overlap of the interwoven worlds of the characters’ fact and the audience’s fiction.

And so what we have is a story and examination of a marriage, what lies beneath and also beyond vows taken, and whether forgiveness really is sweeter than revenge?

Before the play began, my plus 1 in theatre and life remarked that due to the ever-lasting popularity and understandable indulgence in such ‘drawing room dramas’, a night at the theatre is so often accompanied by the sight of both a piano and chaise-longue on set.

And I have to say, both are a sight for sore eyes for myself as a promising pre-cursor for the witty repartee and prim yet outright improper scandal we’re about to witness on stage.

And so it was true of The Constant Wife. Laura Wade’s revival is faithful yet fresh, with all players understanding and more than meeting the assignment. And with a couple of slight prop malfunctions during scene changes (what’s a little stubborn fireplace which refuses to revolve between friends) actually adding charm and not-at-all misplaced humour to the mix, The Constant Wife is a quintessential night at the theatre that ticks all the boxes.

(And forgive me, but oh and that wardrobe!).

For further details and tickets, visit The Constant Wife | Lowry | Lowry – on until this Saturday 21 March.

Production images: Mihaela Bodlovic