Revivals of very popular plays attract audiences through their familiarity, but the best of them then reveal something unfamiliar. That test is set this summer to three classics, each first seen in the second year of a twentieth- century decade.

Present Laughter
Old Vic, London

The Deep Blue Sea
Chichester Festival Theatre

Noises Off
Lyric Hammersmith, London

Revivals of very popular plays attract audiences through their familiarity, but the best of them then reveal something unfamiliar. That test is set this summer to three classics, each first seen in the second year of a twentieth- century decade.

Noël Coward’s Present Laughter (1942) was in one sense behind history – its planned 1939 premiere was prevented by the start of the Second World War – but in another ahead of it: many assume that, in portraying the romances of Garry Essendine, an ageing English actor, Coward was forced by the laws and mores of the time to heterosexualise the gay flirtations and betrayals on which he drew.

With the approval of the playwright’s estate, Matthew Warchus’ staging makes two of Garry’s paramours male and, in another statement of revisionist intent, places under the play’s name the words, “Originally titled Sweet Sorrow”. The point is clearly to suggest the comedy is more bitter than generally played.

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