WCXX

Theatregoers may be relieved to learn that we don't see any geriatric sex action or nudity in Vicky Featherstone's production. The play consists entirely of dialogue in the striking glass walled house with a desert garden on the American West Coast in which the man set up his mistress. The play is so sleekly designed by Merle Hensel that I felt like moving in my self.

I am not sure however that I would want to spend thirty years visiting the lady of the house. She may not be "She who must be obeyed" of the Rumpole stories, but She is a relentless talker and pretty hard line feminist who often gives her lover an ear-whacking, as well as chucking him out of the house when her "group" arrives, doubtless to talk about the iniquities of the male of the species.

I have to admit that I wished the play dealt more with love, lust and the human heart and less with sexual politics. In Saskia Reeves's earnest, bespectacled performance you can't help thinking she got the better part of the deal in getting her lover to pay while also reading him the riot act about feminist issues.

But there are moments of mutual tenderness, too and Danny Webb'as He gives as good as he gets when it comes to an argument. I was also moved by his response to her mastectomy and he memorably captures this often pugnacious man's touching frailty and enduring love in the last section of the play.

Nevertheless there are many moments when one feels like shaking both these garrulous, self-obsessed people who both seem scarily deficient when it comes to a sense of humour.

At the Royal Court Theatre until March 22; Tickets: 020 7565 5000; royalcourttheatre.com