Ferdinand is an honest and almost prude chemist at the Fourageot laboratories. His boss, Mr Fourageot, is mostly busy with his mistresses but comes to be worried with his young and outgoing daughter.
Fate intervenes as the box finds its way into the hands of the carefree roisterer Johnny whose only dream was to live an easy life. Travelling with Darya, John undergoes a profound transformation.
John Hopkins, as Octavius, has little to do but look cool and remote; Tom Mannion's Antony - no roisterer he - is oddly quiet and underplayed. To those two excellent actors Tim Pigott-Smith and ...