How the Other Half Loves at the Old Vic

A raucous, laugh-a-second saga fills every inch of the Old Vic with chortling. This is Alan Ayckbourn’s How the Other Half Loves, revived to perfection.

How the Other Half Loves is a romp of marital misunderstandings as one silly love affair sparks a thousand other assumptions and rumours among the characters who latch on to anything but the truth.

It’s a Thursday morning and two couples, the Phillips and the Fosters, go about their routine in their homes. Terry Phillips questions her husband Bob on why he was late home the night before while his boss, Frank Foster, questions his wife Fiona about the very same thing. Bob uses another colleague, William Featherstone, as an excuse while Fiona uses his wife, Mary. The whole thing unravels, re-ravels and unravels again when the Featherstones are invited for dinner at both the Fosters’ and Phillips’.

This is a fiercely sharp comedy from one of the very best modern British playwrights. Ayckbourn skewers the middle-class marital dynamics of the time with piercing wit and clever experimentation with space and time.

Scenes literally overlap each other with the Phillips and the Fosters both moving around the same space on stage but performing different scenes set in different places and at different times. It’s a remarkably clever script to weave together scenes on top of scenes and beautiful direction from Phillip Breen to utilise the space and keep the action moving.

The set is simple but smart. Living rooms and dining rooms that cross over one another to create two homes in one place at one time. The dining tables in particular are a marvellous piece of stage design that, while occupying the exact same space, manage to showcase how different the two homes are.

The cast are all wonderfully funny. The great Roger Allam is a powerhouse as the absent-minded Frank Foster. His ability to turn anything, from a look to an utterance, into a punchline makes him a pleasure to watch from the first second to the last. Meanwhile, the awkward and more overtly caricaturesque Featherstones, played by Adam Gillen and Laura Elsworthy, are non-stop hilarious.

How the Other Half Loves is, without a doubt, one of the funniest shows in London this year. Few will be able to resist breaking down into fits of giggles in the first ten minutes alone, and the remaining two and a half hours will have everyone on the floor.

Jim Compton-Hall
Photos: Manuel Harlan

How the Other Half Loves is at the Old Vic from 29^th July until 19^th September 2026. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.