Ever since I played Dan in Night Must Fall about thirty years ago, I have had a soft spot for Emlyn Williams. Yet, his late play Accolade had passed me by and it was a great pleasure to finally catch up with it in Dom Ward’s production.

Although written and set in 1950 the play is certainly topical with a high-profile celebrity brought down for sexual misdemeanours and subsequently hounded by the press. In this case the personality in question is Will (or in his other life Bill) Trenting, Nobel prize-winning novelist whose knighthood is announced at the start of the play. Daniel Ball gave a fine, measured performance in this central role, showing a seriously flawed man with a respectable public face. His readership had little idea that the seedy underbelly of life, described in his novels, was not merely imagined but experienced to the full.

Indeed I can’t really fault any of the performances in this production, from both Tower regulars and new members alike. Lisa Castle was superb as the understanding wife who is able to forgive her husband’s unconventional lifestyle, and Jonathan Norris made the most of what I thought was a slightly underwritten role of the publisher Thane Lampeter. Lily Ann Green, whom I had not seen on stage for too long, was a delightful Marian, long-time friend of the Trentings who is quite incapable of coping with the revelations about Will’s other life.

Now, those readers who didn’t catch the play will need a bit of background. Unfortunately this is where the play’s premise became a bit unstuck in my mind. Trenting has a penchant for orgiastic sex parties and has been an aficionado of such events since before he got married. And there I was thinking the 1940s was all blitz spirit, Vera Lynn and Woolton pies. His partners in crime, so to speak, are Harold and Phyllis Begham of Maida Vale who, like Trenting, frequent the goings on at the Blue Lion in Rotherhithe. These were strong performances from new members, Teddy Rose and Bethan Sullivan, although I’m afraid I did find Mr Rose a bit indistinct at times. It’s just a shame that I couldn’t really understand their role in the play and why they turned up quite so frequently at the Trentings’ house.

Back to the plot. At a little orgy just before Christmas down in Rotherhithe, Trenting has been photographed in flagrante with a certain Joan Daker and it turns out that the little hussy is no more than 14. Amazing what a fox fur, earrings and a new hairstyle can do. But then again when I’ve seen photographs of Princess Margaret in 1945 it’s hard to believe that she was only 14 at the time. Simon Taylor gave a stand-out performance as her father who is out to profit from the situation, the seediness and venality of his character coming out in every line and gesture.

The subtext of the play is, of course, about Emlyn Williams own double life as a successful, respectable married playwright with a penchant for rent boys and the London gay underworld. I have no problem with that, but I can’t feel the same level of empathy with the case of an underage girl. Any sympathy I might have had for Trenting rather flew out of the window.

In addition to the aforementioned actors there were two absolutely scene-stealing performances from Isaac Insley as the Trentings’ son Ian, and from the director himself as Albert. Isaac’s performance neatly captured both the naivety and the knowingness of a child of the period, and his scenes with his stage parents towards the end of the play were exceptionally touching. I don’t know whether Dom Ward was unable to cast the part of Albert, or whether he really just fancied playing the role himself but it was a splendid portrayal of the Trentings’ secretary/ chauffeur/ butler/ jack-of-all-trades, his accent shifting between well-bred and broad London as the situation demanded.

Initially, I was not totally convinced by Michael Bettell’s set, which seemed as though it couldn’t decide whether it was realistic or merely symbolic. For reasons best known to himself, Williams set the play in Will Trenting’s study, leading on to the garden of their presumably substantial property (staff of three, don’t you know). By limiting the acting area to a raised platform centre stage, the result was what appeared to be a rather poky little room, one nevertheless where all the key action had to take place. I felt that this did rather constrict the actors who at times looked a bit squeezed. And if it was a study, why did it have a wardrobe, and a somewhat distracting bright red suit hanger ? And was the empty picture frame really necessary ? The symbolism only emerged towards the end of the play when, in a clever coup-de theatre, the pillars on stage collapsed outwards, just as Trenting’s world collapsed in on him.

While mentioning stage effects, I must congratulate Dinah Irvine and her crew on the stone thrown through the window as the mob begins to hound the beleaguered Trentings. It worked a treat.

My only other slight quibble with the production was with the recorded voices used to cover the scene changes. Presumably, it was meant to be people reading extracts from Trenting’s novels, but I felt that they could have been recorded a bit more clearly as they were quite hard to make out.

All in all though, this was a masterly, tight and well-dressed (superb costumes by Jessica Hammett) production that I thoroughly enjoyed watching.