In a powerful account of lives blighted by love – or the lack of it – judge’s wife Hester flounders in the closing stages of a hopeless affair. Her lover, a handsome but shallow ex-RAF pilot, is out of his depth in the face of emotions he just can’t reciprocate.

When Hester is found unconscious after a failed suicide attempt in her shabby Ladbroke Grove flat, the tumultuous affair that upended her life is exposed. As the day unfolds, Rattigan’s finely tuned drama reveals the aching complexity of love, desire and emotional dependency as Hester must confront the painful gulf between romantic idealism and reality.