In a small Dartmoor hotel in postwar Britain, a group of long-term residents are eking out their lives in genteel poverty. The colonel is a loveable old blimp, Mrs Whyte is tight-lipped upper-middle-class widow who has fallen on hard times, and variety is added by Mrs Ashworth, a member of the lower classes who would be more at home in Albert Square, and Julius Winterhalter, a refugee displaced from Vienna to Devon. Life passes slowly and without excitement until a blizzard and an accident with the Rolls deposits the glamorous, cosmopolitan Lancasters in their midst. Soon everyone is reassessing their lives faster than you can say toasted teacake. Apparently, Dame Edith Evans rescued NC Hunter's 1951 wintry drama from Binkie Beaumont's slush pile and it ran for two successful years in the West End. But it remains completely frozen in time, and, while Joanna Read's production is very handsomely done, you do wonder why anyone would want to do it at all when there are so many more neglected and interesting postwar plays that are really deserving of attention.
It's observation of character and situation is quite nice, but the drama is not only devoid of drama but also subtext. Some of the attitudes to class and people's lot in life (we should take what we are given at birth and be thankful) are so quaint that you'll either want to snort with laughter or machine-gun some of the characters.
Nancy Surman provides an atmospheric design that captures the snowbound existence of the residents' lives, and there are strong performances all round. But this is a leisurely play that should be put into permanent retirement, and there is something patronising about programming that assumes that Salisbury's theatregoers have such geriatric tastes.
· Until February 7. Box office: 01722 320333.
