The London Cuckholds (Byrne)

Edward Ravenscroft, the Feydeau of Restoration drama, wrote The London Cuckholds in 1681 and it was played fairly regularly despite some censure. John Byrne's new adaptation, seen in Leicester and at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith in 1985, allows Ravenscroft's Rabelaisian wit to be sophisticated and polished rather than crudely vulgar. 

Doodle and Dashwell, aldermen with young wives, argue about the qualities in a woman that make for the most secure marriage, each feeling that his reputation is safe with his own wife's attributes of wit and godliness, respectively. Before long they find themselves cuckholded, not once, but several times!