Relatively Speaking has opened this week to mostly enthusiastic reviews. The play was originally Alan Ayckbourn's first big hit from 1967 when, coincidentally, a young Richard Briers was among the cast (his most famous TV co-star Felicity Kendal appears in this revival from Lindsay Posner).

"This is a brilliantly witty comedy, but it leaves a bitter, lingering aftertaste," wrote Charles Spencer in his 4-star appraisal for The Telegraph. "The comedy is so clever, and the laughter so frequent, that it is only at the end that one realises quite what a monster the philandering husband is... The confusion, panic, desperate lying and mistaken identity routines... are an ingenious comic joy."

Henry Hitchings describes the play as "...a perky comedy of misunderstandings" which "...delights in the blandness of suburban life..." Awarding 3 stars in the London Evening Standard, his complaint is a lack of charm and "...that touch of madness necessary for perfect farce. True, it offers an unsettling picture of marital distress and tight-lipped Englishness, at times ripely amusing. Yet for all Ayckbourn's craft it strains credibility, and too many of the jokes are predictable."

Much of Michael Billington's praise in his 4-star review for The Guardian is reserved for the underestimated Ayckbourn himself and his ability to "...conjure laughter out of marital misery... He is as funny as any of the classic comedy writers and, in this early piece, showed how prolonged misunderstanding can become a source of painful truth."

In The Stage, Mark Shenton agreed that "Ayckbourn's mastery of plot, dialogue and character keeps all the comic balls in the air," and calls it "...a classic comedy of cross-purposes and subterfuge that is cleverly sustained to virtually the final curtain."

In the Daily Mail, Quentin Letts suggests that Felicity Kendal is the main reason for seeing it. "TV's Felicity, as some newspapers persist in calling her, is enough of a stage star to rise above something as piffling as a decade or more between her own age and that of her character. If Miss Kendal creaks a little, so does the play. We can probably overlook both matters because the central plot idea is so clever and because zingy-faced Miss Kendal is such a bundle of comic timing."

Relatively Speaking is at the Wyndham's Theatre until 31 August.

22 May 2013 - Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
25 May 2013 - The West End Men
04 June 2013 - The Amen Corner
13 July 2013 - Gabriel
13 July 2013 - Dirty Dancing
25 July 2013 - Sound Of Music
07 August 2013 - West Side Story
12 September 2013 - The Commitments
30 September 2013 - From Here To Eternity

24 May 2013 - A Midsummer Nights Dream (Shakespeares Globe)
28 May 2013 - Strange Interlude
01 June 2013 - Sweet Bird Of Youth
04 June 2013 - Happy New
08 June 2013 - The Cripple of Inishmaan
10 June 2013 - The Taming of the Shrew
13 June 2013 - The Night Alive
19 June 2013 - Fences
20 June 2013 - Pride and Prejudice
22 June 2013 - Macbeth (Shakespeares Globe)
22 June 2013 - Private Lives
24 June 2013 - Derren Brown: Infamous
29 June 2013 - The Winters Tale
29 June 2013 - The Lady Killers
18 July 2013 - Brainiac
23 July 2013 - Harry the Sixth - Henry VI Part 1
24 July 2013 - True Tragedy of Duke of York - Henry VI Part 3
24 July 2013 - The House of York and Lancaster - Henry VI Part 2
29 July 2013 - Indian Tempest
31 July 2013 - Liola
07 August 2013 - Horrible Histories - Barmy Britain Part I
24 Aug 2013 - Blue Stockings
06 September 2013 - Barking in Essex
07 September 2013 - A Midsummer Nights Dream (Noel Coward)
07 September 2013 - Much Ado About Nothing
14 September 2013 - The Lightning Child
18 September 2013 - The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui
26 September 2013 - Horrible Histories - Barmy Britain Part II
23 November 2013 - Henry V (Noel Coward)
25 November 2013 - Emil and the Detectives
20 February 2014 - The Full Monty
14 April 2014 - Russell Howard - Wonderbox