4 F / 5 M
Farcical Comedy
The characters are not naturalistic portraits but rather caricatures of contemporary types. As in the older comedies their names suggest their identities (Midway, Makepiece, Freeman, etc.). The model Midland householder, Fred Midway, sedulously climbing the business and social ladders, self-educated by correspondence courses, with his material yardstick, his oratory, self-knowledge and pathetic faith in himself, provides a brilliant centre to a highly entertaining and satirical play.
The Midways, spurred on by father Fred, are a family on the move. Thanks to his energetic success in selling insurance they have put their humble beginnings behind them and have established themselves as solid members of the burgeoning middle class. Turning each new opportunity to his advantage Fred moves onward and upward, manoeuvres his youngest daughter into marriage with the insipid son of a wealthy family- but trouble erupts when April, the married daughter, announces that she intends to divorce her spineless husband because of the fact that he stands to be disinherited by his rich uncle's impending marriage. Taking command, with wife Hilda as his trusting lieutenant, Fred plunges vehemently into the fray and, despite a few desperate moments when his Machiavellian cunning threatens to desert him, pulls all the chestnuts out of the fire with masterly, and unerring, self-concern. It all works out his way - or does it? As the play ends we sense that even Fred, that paragon of expediency, is beginning to wonder a bit about whether the real values in life might lie elsewhere than in the goals which he has been so furiously pursuing.
