Terence Rattigan’s powerfully moving classic is centred on Hester Collyer, the wife of a judge in the socially suffocating climate of 1950s London.

Her passion for a former RAF pilot has edged her to the limits of ‘respectable’ society; and as his ardour has cooled, her despair has increased. Sometimes seen as partly inspired by Rattigan’s own experiences as a gay man, the play has one of the great female roles of post-war English theatre and a beautifully drawn range of supporting characters.