Sheridan's play, first performed at London's Drury Lane Theatre in 1777, mixes comic situations and tender feeling with brilliant repartee and a sharp satirical edge, in a smart, witty play about the pleasures and perils of scandal. The plots, scandals and disguises result in brilliantly contrived comic scenes, sometimes connecting with moments of human pain and happiness, before returning to the splendid artificial world of heightened wit and heightened folly.