James Wilby Web -

The Second Mrs Tanqueray the play – Sexual double-standards explored amid a backdrop of Victorian social customs

If the name sounds a little hazy now, it soon won’t: Arthur Wing Pinero (1855-1934) is about to retake the London stage.

One of the most acclaimed of late 19th-century playwrights, Pinero fell from favour during the 20th, but this intriguing revival will be closely followed by The Magistrate at the National and Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ at the Donmar.

If Mrs T doesn’t quite reveal itself a first-rate piece, it certainly makes for fascinating viewing, hemmed in as it is by the vice-like grip of late Victorian morality and the sexual double standards that were — are — applied to men and women.

Rich, good-natured Aubrey Tanqueray (James Wilby) is about to marry again, this time to Paula (Laura Michelle Kelly), a woman with a murky sexual past. The play’s fulcrum is the pair’s ability to go so far but no further with this bravely unconventional step: Aubrey is unwilling to let Paula consort with his convent-educated daughter Ellean (Rona Morison), whereas Mrs T Mark Two is fractious and impatient in her social intercourse.

The always watchable Wilby nicely suggests a decent man hamstrung by the opposing pulls of decorum and desire, whereas the feisty Kelly presents Paula as a spirited woman, who could potentially do so much for this hidebound upper-class milieu, undone by insecurity. There’s a jolly supporting turn from Sally Tatum as another “unsuitable” wife and Stephen Unwin’s elegant production makes the Rose’s rambling stage seem much less unwieldy than usual.

The Standard / 13 October 2012