This new-old play turned out to be an unexpected suprise. I thought I knew the Coward-canon all the way through, but it turns out there was another ‘first play’ lurking there before The Vortex and Fallen Angels. The Rat Trap was written at the end of the First World War, while the author was recovering from a breakdown; but so far from being a piece of jejune juvenilia it offers a remarkably shrewd account of relationships, the tensions of marriage, and in particular the difficulties faced by two creative egos when they choose to live as well as work together. How could someone so young have witnessed and processed so much? Precocious yes; prententious, no.
At the start we meet two women writers, Olive and Sheila, who have shared a flat together successfully. But this is coming to an end as Sheila, a novelist, is marrying Keld, an aspiring playwright. Olive predicts trouble ahead and she is not wrong. Sheila and Keld quarrel incessantly, like two rats in a trap, until one of them submits. Sheila gives up her writing, as Keld’s career burgeons, and gender stereotypes are reasserted. Keld’s egotism bursts all bounds until his affair with a lively starlet is exposed and Sheila walks out. There are no happy endings, only an ambiguous compromise.
Coward’s retrospect on his own work was crisply dismissive of both structure and diction, but Bill Rosenfield has ‘reimagined’ the original in a way that should render it more than just a theatrical curiosity. The pretentious artistic chatter of the opening scene is smoothed down, leaving the touches of characteristic wit and spirited sparring intact. The quarrel scenes build to a peak admirably, anticipating what Coward achieves a decade or more later in Act 2 of Private Lives. Only the ending still disappoints and deflates, sitting oddly at variance with many of the viewpoints and themes so well established earlier in the play.
The actors take their opportunities with relish here. Ewan Miller grows plausibly through the role of Keld, embracing the monstrous moments of self-centredness, but moving beyond them too. Lily Nichol, as Sheila, has a quiet dignity and fierce intelligence in her performance that never dims despite the pressures she is subjected to. Gina Bramhill’s character, Olive, is somewhat underused in the play; but she makes a strong impact in the scenes that bookend the drama, and there are interesting hints of a lesbian connection that might have been further developed. Outside the leads, Zoe Goriely offers a brazen splash of colour as Ruby Raymond, the chorus girl on the make; and Ailsa Joy and Daniel Abbott provide an intriguing chorus-like commentary in the shape of a deliberately unmarried couple, daringly embracing free love – where, again, Coward has interesting and shrewd things to say. Lastly, but by no means least, Angela Sims offers a delightful characterisation of the maid, Burrage – the first in a long line of worldly-wise servants that Coward uses to send up and dryly rebuke their hapless employers.
The set left a bit to be desired, to be honest: you can’t stint on period style. Either you should do the 1920s properly or not; and the circle of swishing curtains, herringbone floor and miscellaneous furniture felt more institutional than authentic. The costumes, though, were very much on point.
I think this play needs to settle into a few productions before a final verdict is entered. There are flat patches where the actors are working hard without result; but there are other sections that are totally compelling and incisive. Early Coward possesses an unflinching willingness to take difficult, uncomfortable themes and run with them wherever the drama leads in a way that can be thrilling; sometimes more so than in the later plays, where for all their technical grace, a comfortable sense of style and easy wit can resolve too easily into glossy surfaces. This play has a good measure of that essential courageous quality, and for that reason alone deserves to be taken seriously.
Noël Coward, reimagined by Bill Rosenfield
Director: Kirsty Patrick Ward
Cast: Daniel Abbott, Gina Bramhill, Zoe Goriely, Ailsa Joy, Ewan Miller, Lily Nichol, Angela Sims
Until March 14 2026
2 hrs 20 mins with interval
Photo Credit: Mitzi de Margary