‘Girls, have you ever grasped what money really is? It’s power! Power to do what you like, to go where you like, to say what you like,’ Diana Massingberd tells her fellow workers, worn and frazzled, in Dobson’s hosiery department. Having just received an unexpected inheritance she cries out, ‘With three hundred pounds in my pocket I’d dare any mortal thing on earth.’ So she abandons the shop and cashes everything in for the holiday of a lifetime. ‘All the things that I’d wanted – wanted horribly, and couldn’t have – just because I was poor – pretty dresses, travel, amusement, politeness, consideration and yes, I don’t mind confessing it – admiration – they should be mine while the cash held out.’ What follows is a comedy with a moral heart as she’s pursued by fortune hinters and proposed to by Captain Bretherton. ‘What does a fellow say when he wants to ask the nicest woman in the world to marry him?’ But will he still think she’s nice when he realises that she’s ‘a poor spinster – a desperately poor spinster.’ Will he still want to marry her when she’s dressed him down? ‘You are far too extravagant to live on your own income – you are far too idle to work to increase it – so you look round for a wife who is rich enough to support you in idleness and extravagance.’ Cecily Hamilton’s play with its wonderfully outspoken heroine had Edwardian audiences laughing and applauding from the gallery, the boxes to the stalls. It’s still funny, thought-provoking, a touch sentimental but feminist to its muddy boots and woollen gloves with holes in several of the fingertips.