Scenes from The Best People, written by the British playwright Frederick Lonsdale (1881-1954), and perrformed in August 1909, at the Wyndham's Theatre, where it ran 60 performances.
In 1909 and 1910 Curzon staged another play by Lonsdale and another musical comedy with a book by him, co-written by Curzon: The Best People at Wyndham's and The Balkan Princess at the Prince of Wales. According to Lonsdale's obituarist in The Times the former, although it had only a moderate run of sixty performances, was "a comedy that served as model for almost everything he attempted later ... an adroit and witty trifle, bearing no close resemblance to life as it is lived, about the philanderings of the idle rich".
The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, August 28th 1909, "The Best People," by Frederick Lonsdale, at Wyndham's Theatre.
a- The Hon. Gerald Bayle (Mr. Kenneth Douglas) makes love to Lady Emsworth (Miss Lettice Fairfax) during his wife's absence, and suggests supper for two at midnight in his rooms.
b- Lord Emsworth (Mr. Frederick Kerr) makes love to the Hon. Mrs. Bayle (Miss Eve Moore), and is told to come just after midnight to her rooms. The Hon Mrs. Bayle has discovered her husband's appointment with Lady Emsworth, and orders supper for four, intending to bring the quartette together.
c- The two suppers for two, which have become one supper for four. The Hon. Mrs. Bayle surprises her husband with Lady Emsworth, and the arrival of Lord Emsworth completes the confusion. Both men are guilty, and both ladies appear to be so, although one is merely "stupid," and the other is acting a part.
d- The Hon. Mrs. Bayle comes home and kisses her cold husband, whose head is full of the "stupid" Lady Emsworth.
e- The tables turned. A little later the cold husband, being "found out" and reduced to subjection, ardently kisses his apparently indifferent wife.
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