Set in 1939, Greg Hicks leads as Harry, Lord Monchensey, beleaguered and dogged by the faceless ones as he returns to his home, Wishwood, for his mother's birthday. His unsuitable wife has conveniently drowned at sea in mysterious circumstances. Hicks, a thin figure in his white linen suit and with a dark and brooding face, sometimes seems unhinged by inner demons but he always brings understanding and rhythm to Eliot's verse by stressing one salient word in a line. Amy, the Dowager Lady Monchensey is played ably and imperiously by Margaret Tyzack, the disappointed senior member of her family who is attempting to hold everyone together. Staying at her house are her three sisters and her dead husband's two brothers.
Scenes end with four of the relations talking in unison as in a Greek chorus.
Lyn Farleigh as the youngest sister, Agatha, is different and detached from the others but a lucid and eloquent observer with a special affection for Harry. She rivalled her eldest sister for the affections of Lord Monchensey, Harry's father. The play opens in near darkness, to the sound of the sea and the overly loud tick of the clock, with a tableau of figures, some standing, some sitting on bentwood chairs, in Rob Howell's minimalist set. At the rear is a huge sloping window which by night can reflect the occupants of the room. In daylight, the green, polished to a shine floor is dappled with light resembling sunlight through the branches of leafy trees.