This was disappointing. I was looking forward to Brits behaving badly in a far flung colony, being pompous and silly and Noel Coward-y but this isn't fun. It borders on a drama but it's not that serious. It's more like a... super light drama, I guess, marked by Coward's reactionary politics. The plot involves a progressive governor clashing with a die hard conservative native politician - hahahah he went to Harrow hahahaha he's more conservative that the Brits hahahaha he's against free public toilets (this subplot gets a lot of time - is it meant to be witty?). The wife hangs out with the hardliners son who makes a sleazy move. She conks him on the head, the later on the hardliner tries to use this as blackmail to make the progressive governor on his wife.
There's a subplot about a Coward/Maugham type writer visiting which doesn't go anywhere. The liveliest character is a gossip. Why not have the wife (played by Vivien Leigh) as a man eater, like Edwina Mountbatten was? Why not use the novelist? The story is resolved too easily - the son turns up and says no hard feelings. There's no real jokes unless you find conservative natives funny.
I would love to have read a Coward take on a British outpost where he just went for everyone. But he doesn't really make fun of anyone here. His fangs were blunted.
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