The Circle at the Orange Tree

The Circle Review

Address: 1 Clarence St, Richmond TW9 2QE. Get directions.

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The world of Somerset Maugham is frequently a beguiling yet deceptive one. Perhaps best known today for his masterful short stories, Maugham is also an underrated playwright who delves into human psychology with the lightest of touches.

On the surface, The Circle, written in 1921, is a skilfully constructed comedy of manners set amongst the echelons of polite society, but it’s also a play which deftly explores the gulf between inner feeling and outward form, something well-known to Maugham, whose homosexuality in this era would have necessitated subterfuge.

Stolid MP Arnold Champion-Cheney seems to care more for his antique furniture than Elizabeth, his young, imaginative wife and wonders how he will handle the imminent arrival of his long-estranged mother, Lady Kitty (Jane Asher), who ran away with her lover decades earlier whilst his deserted father Clive is also hovering on the horizon.

When Arnold’s mother does appear, a brittle vision of scarlet glamour, endlessly bickering with her companion Hughie Porteous (Nicholas le Provost), her arrival becomes the catalyst for a witty, poignant and entertaining play where moral conundrums galore lie beneath a bright and playful surface. 

Clive Francis is wonderfully persuasive as the wily, charming and deeply pragmatic Clive Champion-Cheney, who is thoroughly relishing his bachelor status, and Jane Asher is equally good, her surface frivolity masking a woman who has ostensibly paid a high price for romantic impetuosity, declaring with gracious world-weariness: “the tragedy for love...is.. indifference.”

The whole cast is terrific in a stylish, elegantly-staged production that marks new artistic director Tom Littler’s impressive debut at the Orange Tree; Maugham’s drama is ideally suited to the intimacy of this auditorium.

Will history repeat itself, and life comes full circle as the passionate Elizabeth, smitten by her charming suitor Teddie (here reimagined as an Indian businessman), consider indulging her romantic inclinations or will more pragmatic considerations prevail?

Maugham’s skill keeps you guessing until the last, and it’s a talent that amply demonstrates why his plays retain such timeless appeal today.