Until Saturday January 26, Theatre Royal Bath.

Noel Coward, whose hallmark is brilliant repartee, clever quips and witty put-downs, exposes the emptiness inside this brittle social shell in the play which first brought him to the public's attention in 1924.

It was pretty daring stuff for its time - an idolised society wife having affairs with what today would be called toy boys; her son Nicky revealed as a drug addict, and a fleeting hint that his "effeminacy" may be a euphemism for homosexuality.

It begins in a familiar Coward drawing room with a great deal of superficial and frequently bitchy banter - all terribly amusing of course.

Felicity Kendal is Florence Lancaster, the glamorous hostess, beautiful, vain, unpredictable and adored. In tow is her latest young conquest, Tom (Daniel Pirrie). Florence's friend Helen (Phoebe Nicholls) tries to make her see that she is far more infatuated with Tom than he with her and perhaps it is time she grew old gracefully.

But Florence, frantically clinging to her youth, will hear none of it.

But the bubble is about to burst, when Nicky (Dan Stevens) returns from a stay in Paris and produces his fiancée.

Felicity Kendal brilliantly conveys the turmoil of emotions this news creates - shock, jealousy, fear, all of which she tries to conceal while pretending to welcome Bunty, the new woman in his life (Cressida Trew).

Then the twist, as Bunty and Tom turn out to be old friends.

It is clearly all going to end in tears.

Dan Stevens' powerfully portrays the complexities of an emotionally fragile young man whose taste of freedom in Paris has opened his eyes to the self-absorbed person his mother really is and how papering over the cracks will no longer do. He and Kendal share a searing final scene.

There is excellent support from Phoebe Nicholls, Barry Stanton, Annette Badland and Paul Ridley.

The first scene was a little shaky, with a few fluffed lines and missed cues, but the quality cast recovered.

Jo Bayne