[1][2] The play had a brief run on Broadway in March 1948, lasting only seven performances, in a production directed by George Schaefer, using costumes designed by Frank Thompson, and starring Boris Karloff as Professor Linden.
The play takes place in 1947 England in the home of Professor Robert Linden, who holds the chair of modern history at the provincial University of Burmanley.
The new vice-chancellor of the university is pressing Linden to retire, and family itself divides along political lines, the worldly versus the idealists.
The critic Michael Billington summarises it thus: "Linden's put-upon wife, super-spiv son and expatriate daughter all press him to opt for retirement.
[1] After a 2006 revival of the play, Billington, reviewing it in The Guardian thought it "a key work in the immediate post-war theatre".