Wicksteed is 53, has an eye for the ladies and lacks ambition; his wife, Muriel, is a more assertive figure; their son, Dennis, is a wimpish hypochondriac, frustrated at his lack of a girlfriend; Connie is a flat-chested spinster who secretly longs to be sexually alluring; Sir Percy Shorter, President of the British Medical Association, was once Muriel's sweetheart and he bears a grudge against Wicksteed for cutting him out; Lady Rumpers is a returning expatriate, concerned for the purity of her beautiful daughter Felicity; Canon Throbbing is anxious to abandon his celibate state, which he finds a strain to keep up.
Muriel joins in the denunciation and the uproar is increased by a suicide attempt by Wicksteed's patient Mr Purdue, who is trying to hang himself as Lady Rumpers enters.
She finds him repulsive, and has agreed to marry him only because she is already pregnant, wants an official father for her child, and has been led to believe that Dennis has a fatal illness that will soon leave her as a widow.
Lady Rumpers is aghast and reveals that history is repeating itself: she was seduced when young and made a marriage of convenience to give Felicity a legal father.
It starred Donald Sinden as Wicksteed, with a cast including June Havoc, Celeste Holm, Jean Marsh, Ian Trigger, Rachel Roberts and Richard Gere.
[10] The author attributed the comparative failure of the production – a run of 95 performances – to the heavily naturalistic staging by Frank Dunlop and Carl Toms, which he felt slowed down the action.
If they have to negotiate doors or stairs or potted plants or get anywhere except into the wings, then they will be stranded halfway across the stage, with no line left with which to haul themselves off".
[11] Later revivals have included productions by Sam Mendes, with Jim Broadbent as Wicksteed (Donmar, London, 1996),[12] Peter Hall, with James Fleet (Theatre Royal, Bath, 2006);[13] David Thacker, with Rob Edwards (Octagon, Bolton, 2011);[14] and Patrick Marber, with Jasper Britton (Menier Chocolate Factory, London, 2021–22).
[16] In The Guardian, Billington's praise was less guarded, although he found "the diagrammatic neatness of the plotting ultimately becomes slightly oppressive".
[3] In The Daily Express Herbert Kretzmer commented that the author "tries too hard to do too much", although he predicted a long run for the play.
Clive Barnes of The New York Times pronounced the piece "slight and boring"; Howard Kissel commented more approvingly, observing, "farce is an enterprise whose esthetics are not always appreciated by the undiscerning".
[18] The literary scholar Joseph O'Mealy writes that Habeas Corpus, like Tom Stoppard's Travesties, which was staged a year later, was strongly influenced by Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.