Play: What I Really Think of my Husband

With winter chills and nights drawing in, what better time to see a literary, haunting play?

What I Really Think of My Husband, drawn in a lyrical, expressive style, looks at the trials, tribulations and desires of writer Thomas Hardy and of his wives, Emma and Florence. It is enriched by his literature and poetry and lightened by moments of comedy.

The author of the play is David Pinner, whose book Ritual inspired The Wicker Man film. While references are made to Hardy's work, you do not need to know it to follow the story - it is woven seamlessly into the script.

The first act sets the scene. Thomas Hardy (Edmund Dehn) and his first wife Emma (Laura Fitzpatrick) have a difficult marriage and grown apart. Thomas, now aged 60, is upfront that Emma's Christian beliefs grate on him. Their failure to have children is all too disappointing; while she dotes on her cutesily named cats, he has a roving eye for other women.

Thomas looks ruefully back to their exuberant, delightful courtship in Lyonesse (a legendary place by Cornwall immortalised in his poetry). The younger couple (Andrew Crouch and Aliya Silverstone) are captivated by each other to the accompaniment of crying seagulls and crashing waves.

Jude the Obscure has now been published, to strong sales and shocked reviews, where is is named Jude the Obscene.

Emma, barred from seeing the manuscript until publication, highly disapproves of it, viewing it as an attack on her faith and seeing herself reflected in a character who goes from being a lively, independently minded agnostic to a dull Christian, drained of vitality and retreating into herself after the deaths of her children.

She announces to him that she has written her own book - the 'What I Really Think of my Husband' of the title - seeing him as more of a great writer than a great man. She has many of the good and comedic lines in the play.

In the second act, the couple grow yet further apart, as - with his roving eye - Thomas brings Florence Dugdale (Isabella Inchbald) into the home as his secretary and wife's companion. Unlike Emma, she is allowed into Thomas's study.

Yet Emma is no weak character. She shocks with her suggestion of putting morphine in the sherry. A suffragette and an ardent Protestant, she produces an anti-Catholic pamphlet (however, her aversion to the Catholic Church is not explained).

Emma's health deteriorates and, after she dies, grief tears Thomas apart. While he marries Florence, he cannot banish Emma from his life, holding on to her manuscript and she returns to haunt him.

All characters are fully drawn and strongly played by the talented cast. The script is engaging and lyrical, holding attention and flowing smoothly. The music and sound effects set scenes and express moods, and the light shows the brightness of the sea at Lyonesse to the chiaroscuro of ghostliness.

What I Really Think of my Husband, directed by Julia Stubbs and produced by Sarah Lawrie, is at the Golden Goose Theatre, 146 Camberwell New Road, Camberwell, London, SE5 0RR, until 2 December

For more information see: www.goldengoosetheatre.co.uk/whatson/what-i-really-think-of-my-husband