Sheppey (play)

Sheppey (1933) was William Somerset Maugham's last play, written at the age of 59 and after he had reached distinction as a novelist and playwright.

The play was written in 1932 and first produced at the Wyndham's Theatre London on 14 September 1933 with a cast that included Ralph Richardson, then aged 31, and Laura Cowie who had been a star of the silent movies.

Florrie, his daughter, quits her work in the city so that she can speed up the proposed marriage date to her fiancé Ernie.

Ernie believes his proximity to Sheppey’s money will improve his social standing, allowing him to run for parliament, with goals of eventually becoming Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

He takes a street prostitute on hard times into his house, and he welcomes also to his home the thief who he met in court.

"John O'Hara was prompted by Maugham's Sheppey inclusion of the scene with Death to title his influential book Appointment in Samarra.

A modified version of the story is told in "The Six Thatchers" (2017), the first episode of the fourth series of the British television programme Sherlock.

The story was the inspiration for a thought experiment from Allan Gibbard and William Harper's influential paper "Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility".