• The Truth

6/27/26 (Sat), West End

The truth can be a slippery thing in Florian Zeller’s ever-adroit hands, nowhere more hilariously as in this four-person farce of betrayal, cross-betrayal, suspicion, guilt, and lies of little-white and other varieties. Zeller is at the top of his game in this early (2016) work, translated expertly as always by Christopher Hampton.

A man has been having an affair with his best friend’s wife, unbeknownst to either his own wife or his friend – or so he believes. The lies he tells to hide his misbehavior, the lies others tell to spare each other’s feelings, the lies we tell to fool ourselves – all come crashing down as one storyline undercuts the previous one right until the final seconds.

This isn’t the incisive house-of-mirrors drama of The Father, but it’s similar in pulling the rug from under us with each successive scene. The two-timing man, a clueless egoist, has told his mistress that he loves her, his wife that he’s at a meeting, and his best friend that he’s an old aunt (it’s complicated). Having taken the afternoon off for a romp with his friend’s wife, he finds that one excuse leads to another disastrous excuse and then just to disaster. The guy’s mental breakdown is a wonder to watch, and the reactions of the other characters are priceless.

The expert mechanics of the writing were topped by pitch-perfect performances all around, most notably by the spirited Stephen Mangan as the cad, who is going to need a vacation badly by the end of this run after his nonstop theatrics. His endless round of evasions and excuses was rendered with razor-sharp timing, helped by an elastic face and an endless grab-bag of expressions. I was awed. He had fantastic support from both Sarah Hadland (mistress) and the redoubtable Janie Dee (liar’s wife). Ardal O’Hanlon was good enough in a less showy role. But the show belonged to Mangan, who was almost never offstage.

The show packed more laughs into its short running time than should be permitted. I absolutely loved it. This is one of the shows that I booked from Tokyo, and I’m glad I did. Can’t wait for the next Zeller piece.