Noel Coward’s play is like the curate’s egg – good in parts.

The first act is just a tad underwhelming as Coward’s seven characters (not, this time, in search of an author, but in search of an exciting play) set out their stalls on the back stoep of Jamaican villa, discovered nothing but self-disgust)

Mostly they discuss love as a failed commodity to the tinkle of iced drinks. Hearts we discover in chunks of stilted dialogue, have been broken and bruised and to open the play, Jenny Seagrove’s Adela Shelley explains to her philandering guest Guy (the excellent Jason Durr) that she has an enduring devotion to her late husband, in spite of a fling in Venice (where she gave her all on a one-night stand, and incurred self-disgust as a result of her generosity!)

Which is all to the the good, but as this act drags along you realise that Coward never actually saw the play in production, and so the whole thing is posthumous, otherwise the Master may well have thought parts of Volcano in need of re-writing which may explain why Katherine Hepburn among others, turned the role of Adela down, when the play was being touted around by Coward’s agent.

The second act improves as Coward develops the impact of his rich-bitch character Melissa Middleton (a beautifully-composed performance by Dawn Steele playing at the top of her game) who begins to set out the game of connecting the dots, which help us gradually towards solving the mystery of her husband Guy’s character.

In comes Finty Williams who is fine as Ellen Danbury, the friend who, with her husband, (a non-part handled well by Robin Sebastian), runs a banana plantation elsewhere on this tropical island, an activity in which the business-like Adela is also engaged.

And slowly you realise that the gin and tonics, brittle asides, and so on, are going to continue unceasingly for another hour after the volcano (Coward’s tame metaphor for the emotional eruptions between his characters) erupts to no great effect and the interval is over.

This play is no Hay Fever, that much is certain, and Roy Marsden’s direction is frequently static for long periods with the women endlessly sitting around lamenting their lot while sipping – you’ve guessed it –, brandies or martinis.

Indeed, at times, I was reminded of those B-grade 1950s black and white movies starring, perhaps, Dermot Walsh, Stewart Granger, Ann Todd and Jean Kent, also set amonmgst palm trees in faraway places, where one lost concentration after the second reel and returned to one’s chocolate bar.

But no reviewer could ignore the one moment of high drama when the play reached take-off.

This happened as Keith Danbury, another visitor from Singapore, refused to tell hischeating wife of a former love.

Then the dodgy Guy enters, a boarding school is mentioned, and all is clear.

Yet, fearing fifties censorship, Coward left this, the best part of his play, half-starved for action and interest. Still, it was a fine moment, when Tim Daish as Keith stole the acting laurels.

Running time: Two hours, 15 minutes.

Until Saturday.