Title: The young idea
Description: Coward's 1922 'comedy of youth in three acts' is an early work in which two precocious siblings run circles around their elders and betters in order to engineer the reconciliation of their divorced parents. Sholto and Gerda are visiting their father's country home in order to hunt, learn about English society and split up their father from his second wife. The entertainments of the English country gentry are a far cry from the sun-baked Italian villa they have grown up in with their mother, and their satirical volleys against the horsy aristocracy are as delightful as their whispered conspiracy to orchestrate a happy ending for their parents.