A Twenties morality play with a very modern message . . .

OPHELIA LOVIBOND (left), who has been in everything from the TV comedy W1A to The Libertine on stage, will star in a play which explores the actions of a husband who uses ‘manipulation and emotional abuse’ to control his wife. The Stepmother tackles issues of inequality and oppression that Lovibond says are relevant — and prevalent — today. But the drama was written by Githa Sowerby . . . in 1924. Lovibond laughed, then sighed. She observed that, given it’s still a struggle to get a statue of suffrage campaigner Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, ‘not a lot has changed’. In The Stepmother, which Richard Eyre will direct in the Minerva at Chichester Festival Theatre from August 11, Lovibond plays Lois Relph, who inherits money, then builds on it with a dressmaking business.

An older man — played by Will Keen — sees Lois as an easy mark. Once married, he bullies her and takes possession (as was his right then) of her money. But Lois isn’t defeated . . .

Lovibond said she was excited to be working with Eyre — ‘someone who’s part of the fabric of British theatre’.

And Chichester’s artistic director Daniel Evans gave her her first stage role, in The Effect, at Sheffield Theatres. ‘I owe Dan a lot for taking a punt on me,’ she said.