What McGough's version definitely is is a tour de force of rhyme. All the characters, apart from Alceste, the misanthrope of the title, speak exclusively in rhyming couplets. The exhilaration of hearing the contrivance being maintained effectively for the duration of a whole play would have justified the ticket price in itslelf.

The theme is familiar yet always pertinent: frankness versus social falsity. Alceste (played by Colin Tierney) has had enough of the hypocrisy of fashionable society. He assumes a new strategy of blunt honesty, and we witness how he fares.

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