The kittenish Kendal descends innto drunkenness with perfect deportment, while De la Tour is louche and sensual, filling the stage with every movement of her expressive body. Fallen Angels is known as a battleground for jealous rivals eager to upstage each other. That Kendal is utterly outdone here is no reflection on her own performance - nobody would have a chance against the electrifying De la Tour. But the chemistry between them works, and the fact that one half is greater than the other simply increases the size of the whole. It's clear, from Frances de la Tour's entrance, that she doesn't take Fallen Angels seriously, but, then, neither did Noel Coward.
Coward is to blame for the lack of drama, the feeble dialogue and unreality of the situation.
Here are two women who have not seen their lover in 15 years, and neither wonders whether he will still find her attractive. Without the shock value of drunken, squabbling ladies eager for adultery that put the play over in the past, the really desperate characters are likely to be in the audience. The play does not even need the updating Coward gave it in the 1950s, though the garrulous comic maid he added is more amusing and more purposeful than most comic maids, since she s spent a life so packed with interesting and significant incident it emphasises the frivolity of Kendal s Julia and de la Tour s Jane. But how gorgeously, impishly, hilariously frivolous they both turn out to be. The once-infamous second act has lost its sting, but it can never have been funnier than in Michael Rudman s production.