The Letter - TNT

Not so much a 'whodunnit?' as a 'why did she do it?' and 'will she get away with it?', Somerset Maugham's colonial drama, set in the Malay Peninsula, proves more interesting for what is left unsaid. Written in 1927, it shows its age, but Alan Strachan's revival compensates by subtly revealing the sexual dissatisfaction underlying superficially contented marriages and simultaneously exposes the racial prejudice of the privileged expats. Jenny Seagrove's Leslie Crosbie makes no attempt to conceal that she's in her dressing gown when the house boys discover her with the body of the fellow Brit into whom she's just emptied a barrel of bullets. Anthony Andrews (as her suspicious lawyer) shrinks from her touch yet pockets the hanky with which her husband has wiped his sweaty neck, and Jason Chan is craftily and comically manipulative as his clerk.
Wyndhams, Charing Cross Rd, WC2, 020-950 0925. Until August 11. £16.50-£49.50

LOUISE KINGSLEY