Storm In A Flower Vase

In the 1930s, Constance Spry once created a floral display in the window of her shop on Bond Street that was so attention grabbing that the police had to control the crowds. Long before the stem-wielding hippies, Spry had invented flower power.

Today, it seems inconceivable that a floral designer (never a florist) could produce anything so arresting, yet her decision to break from hothouse blooms and ‘common flowers’ like carnations in favour of wildflowers, or even cabbages, was groundbreaking. And her randomly placed bunches of roses in buckets or baking trays still look like they have stepped out of the pages of today's Vogue.

Spry’s life was a complex mix, much of it missed in this play’s rather pedestrian telling. Perhaps playwright Anton Burge didn’t think it important to mention that Spry was asked to do the flowers for the Queen’s Coronation or two Royal weddings. She is easily dismissed as a society gal in her trademark pillbox hat and pearls, and devoted WI following, but as the daughter of a railway clerk from Derby she had no problem embracing the concept of being a ‘self-made’ woman.

By the time she arrived in London she had already left one husband and had a small son in tow. She took her name from her second ‘husband’ Earnest ‘Shav’ Spry and set about changing the aesthetic culture. Much of the action of Storm In A Flower Vase revolves around her decision to become a late-blooming lesbian by accepting the advances of a cross-dressing painter called ‘Gluck’ (Carolyn Backhouse). She wears the pyjamas, Spry wears the nightie, and everyone smokes.

Penny Downie is adorable as Spry and Sheila Ruskin perfect as her business partner, the cook Rosemary Hume, who gave us Coronation Chicken. Christopher Ravenscroft looks lost as Shav, while the best lines and only laughs are delivered by Carol Royle as the society hostess Syrie Maugham.

Spry died in 1960 after slipping down the stairs at her home. Her last words are said to have been: ‘Someone else can arrange this.’ I suspect, given the chance, she would say much the same about this play.

Until 12 October at the Arts Theatre, Great Newport Street, London WC2: 020-7836 8463, www.artstheatrewestend.co.uk