The Constant Wife: Review

Playwright Laura Wade has performed CPR on a Somerset Maugham play many would think not worth bringing back from the dead. It’s easy to see the attraction of adapting The Constant Wife, with its garrulous talk, witty asides and ‘modern’ message for women (and perhaps men). If the play lacks Wilde’s rapier wit or Shaw’s irony it does at least provide some theatrical frippery in these grim times. 

With feminism under attack as never before from the rise of the manosphere, a play which champions women’s economic freedom within marriage and their ability to make their own choices is admirable. Maugham here presents marriage as a transactional relationship where women stay silent on the subject of infidelity in exchange for ‘bed and board’ and economic reassurance. 

Constance Middleton (played with sophisticated elan by Kara Tointon) is the eponymous constant wife. She breezes on stage with the unruffled elegance of a superyacht, determined not to be blown off course by the domestic tribulations presented by philandering husband and Harley Street surgeon John. He has patients, she has patience. Her mother Sara Clover (a brilliant performance by the great Sara Crowe) dispenses ditsy advice to keep quiet and accept that men are born to be unfaithful (at least it’s with your best friend, she says, and not someone you don’t know); while Constance’s sister Martha – the paragon of the independent new woman – is all for tearing down the shibboleths of marriage and confronting the guilty parties. In the end, Constance decides forgiveness is a more powerful weapon than revenge. 

With music by Jamie Cullen and sharp direction from Tamara Harvey, this dialogue-heavy play is given a much-needed lift which keeps it bobbing along nicely. There are some delicious double entendres and the set – all tennis whites and art nouveau abstraction – underscores how the glitter of marriage may just be that once the shine has worn off. 

The drama, such as it is, effectively ends with the first act and much of the second act is spent explaining the first. But you can only get by on so many apothegms about the relative personality traits of men and women before wanting to set fire to the playbook. Constance is indeed constant (annoyingly so), not wanting to upend a cosy domestic set-up, but at what cost? She goes into business with her sister and finds she is able to support herself but chooses not to leave John, instead paying him a year’s rent for board and lodging at the family home. At this point, anything seems possible. 

There is some fine acting in the production. Tim Delap gives us a John terrified less of being caught out by his wife than being societally shamed by the thought of her going away on holiday with another man. Said man, Bernard Kersal (played with puppyish sincerity by Alex Mugnaioni) is the real love of her life but Constance is too much of a realist to fall for him. Jocasta King is perfect as the femme fatale, all swoon and swagger, while Amy Vicary-Smith plays Martha with strident urgency. 

The final word, however, must go to Philip Rham as Bentley the butler who – like all butlers, of course – knows everything about everyone and in the end is the only person you can rely upon for being straight down the line. 

The Constant Wife is at Lowry, Salford from 17-21 March 2026.