Review: This is why The Vortex creates a swirling mass of emotions at Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester has had an enduring affection for Noel Coward, even when he has slipped periodically from fashion. But that is not the only reason why this is a great choice to start the 2023 season. Coward died 50 years ago in 1973 – and The Vortex was first performed all but 50 years before that in 1924, as controversial then as it was acclaimed.

Coward is known for his waspish wit and his comedies of manners and social flamboyance. So there is no surprise that the first act contains so many qualities that were to become his hall mark.

We are introduced to a group of dysfunctional individuals – the feckless Nicky Lancaster and his ageing beauty of a mother Florence who occupies her time with a succession of young lovers. With symmetrical precision Joshua James and Lia Williams are son and mother both on stage and in real life.

We are also introduced to the occasional writer Bunty Mainwaring (Isabella Laughland) currently engaged to Nicky; her ex-fiance Tom (Sean Delaney) who is Florence’s current lover; and friend Helen (Priyanga Burford) who does her best to dispense wise advice.

By the second act, as Nicky’s drug addiction is revealed – long assumed as a metaphor for repressed homosexuality – the various relationships turn and unpick with the colourful interchange of a kaleidoscope.

But it is not until the third section – all played continuously without an interval – that the edifice truly comes crashing down, providing one of Coward’s darkest and most profound contrasts to his souffle like opening.

In the wrong hands, the final moments could have seemed contrived and over-dramatic. But James and Williams play it with perfection treading the line of heartbreak and condemnation between mother and son with intense, passionate, utterly believable precision.

Rarely was a play better titled – for this is a whirling mass of emotional air. It is not the most substantial play to open a season at Chichester but it sweeps the audience along as all whirwinds inevitably do and it sets the tone for a terrific summer of shows at the city’s prized festival theatre.