This was no play. This was life itself. An honest man with social skills problems (let's say) was banished from polite society in front of our eyes.

I wanted to embrace the fops, substitute the heroine's quill for something of more variable geometry and see the eponymous misanthrope thoroughly frustrated. I came away totally satisfied and even a bit weak from having laughed so much.

I'm left with a couple of tiresome and nagging questions, however. Was the play some satire of 'polite' society? And what happens to 'misanthropes' in present-day British society, which is still largely 'polite' despite the best efforts of Baroness Thatcher RIP?