3 Review(s)

With piercing accuracy, William Congreve depicted the shallow, brittle world of 'society', where the right artifice in manners, fashion and conversation – and money – eased the passage to success. Through sparkling, witty dialogue and brilliant characterisation – Lady Plyant, Valentine, Lady Touchwood, Mirabell and Millamant – Congreve exposed the follies and vanities of that world, and suggested that behind the glinting mirror lay something more brutal.