As this subtle, ingenious, completely absorbing tale progresses, a chilling and uneasy menace develops just below the surface. In fact, it’s centuries old, and needs a mixture of inner psychological tension, more memorable dialogue and a hint of something wider at stake – or anything at stake, really – to be worth a 21st-century audience’s time.

The Kytes aren’t evil, but they are shallow, rich and silly, allowing themselves to be led by their impulses and emotions. Her second novel Her was selected for the Waterstones Book Club and shortlisted for the Encore Award for best second novel. at the Royal Exchange, Manchester; Playhouse Creatures at the West Yorkshire Playhouse; and Be My Baby for Soho Theatre Company.Dance includes The Cellist for the Royal Ballet, plus new work with Wayne McGregor, Cathy Marston, Will Tuckett, Karole Armitage, Bern Ballet and Scottish Dance Theatre. at The Bridge; Husbands and Sons, Emil and the Detectives and Hymn / Cocktail Sticks at the National Theatre; A Cream Cracker Under the Settee at Bolton Octagon; The March on Russia at the Orange Tree; Untold Stories at the Old Laundry; Billy Liar, Pygmalion and Everybody Loves a Winner at Royal Exchange Manchester; Hay Fever at Chichester; Enjoy at Watford Palace; The Merry Wives of Windsor (also UK and US tour) at Shakespeare’s Globe; and work at the Crucible Sheffield, Birmingham Rep, Oldham Coliseum, Manchester Library, Leicester Haymarket, Derby Playhouse, New Vic Newcastle-under-Lyme and Mercury Colchester. But the trope of the plucky female upstart who rises to become the power behind the throne is no less cliché.

The novel has the momentum of a thriller but not at the expense of an economical lyricism - there is a lovely assurance to the writing. It’s never particularly obvious what she actually wants; but probably she doesn’t know herself, her entire journey a sort of listless poking at her own spiritual void. Plus it’s a real landmark for Hytner: some 40 years into his career, he’s finally directed a play written by a woman – better late than never. Books editor Mary (Sylvestra Le Touzel), the doyenne of the arts desk, is the most fun to watch, but her jocular complaints about hot-desking and social media “traction” feel like calculated crowd-pleasers rather than organic wit.At one point, Frances skewers the tedium of Kyte’s fiction – stories about “middle-aged, middle-class men who struggle with the decline in their physical powers, a decline that mirrors the state of the culture around them”.