‘It’s unattractive to be disagreeable in the heat,” Adela tells Guy: bickering starts early in Noël Coward’s play Volcano . The scene is the island of Samolo, a British colonial possession in the south-western Pacific. Fumfumbolo, the island’s active volcano, rumbles ominously in the background. In the absence of his wife Melissa, Guy is persistently keen to start an affair with Adela, but she is having none of it.

In any case, Melissa soon arrives — overbearing, grating of the voice, and constantly complaining, it’s easy to see why her husband might be tempted to look elsewhere — and Guy has done exactly that on several previous occasions. In this Bill Kenwright/Thelma Holt production, Dawn Steele’s Melissa is loathsome — yet Steele miraculously manages to make you feel a touch of sympathy for her at the same time: she has had a lot to put up with from Jason Durr’s self-centred and self-admiring Guy. Elegant and usually calm, Adela (Jenny Seagrove, in an understated performance) welcomes other guests to the island. There’s Ellen (Perdita Avery), who is smouldering like the volcano itself following a row with her husband, who remains in Honolulu on business. And to provide contrast, there’s a happily married, couple, chirpy Grizelda (Finty Williams) and Robin (Robin Sebastian), who bounds eagerly in and out with the drinks tray.

As familiar themes of love, marriage, and fidelity (or lack of it) develop, Volcano seems like vintage Coward. And yet it doesn’t, quite. This is a late play, written in 1956, and never performed in Coward’s lifetime. The sometimes bitter dialogue doesn’t always flow with quite the incisive sharpness of, say, Hay Fever or Present Laughter. Is that because of the writing, or because the cast is still feeling its way? Or is it that director Roy Marsden has deliberately introduced an edginess into the proceedings? Certainly, the awkward pauses and silences that follow each bitchy exchange between the characters are beautifully timed and observed. Be that as it may, Coward’s traditional audiences — not to mention the Lord Chamberlain, who was still censoring plays in 1956 — would definitely not have liked his coup de theatre. As an apparently minor character, Ellen’s husband Keith finally arrives from Honolulu after the interval. He, too, has been unfaithful — but with another man. Tim Daish quietly and expertly delivers this bombshell.

Right on cue, the volcano erupts. It’s an earthshaking scenic event, thanks to designer Simon Scullion and lighting designer Mike Robertson, and it puts the seal on an unsettling, and thought provoking theatrical evening.

Until Saturday. Box office: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com). The play is at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, from August 14 to September 29. (0844 482 9675, www.nimaxtheatres.com/vaudeville-theatre).