Even when I don’t particularly enjoy a play, I rarely regret going to the theatre. But Woman in Mind is an exception.

The strength of my feelings has nothing to do with the acting. In fact, Sheridan Smith flipping between reality and conjecture was impressive; Romesh Ranganathan as the bumbling doctor – a role that admittedly hardly requires much acting prowess– handled the situational comedy well enough. The staging was rather good too. It had an Alice through the Looking Glass vibe, with warping, psychedelic projections onto the safety curtain mirroring the disintegrating mental state of the main character.

But put very simply, the play itself is poor. It is a somewhat misogynistic take on struggles many women experience, and it fails to explore or challenge any of the themes it raises.

The play’s shortcomings become clearer when considering its inspiration. As noted on the official Alan Ayckbourn website, the play was partially inspired by Oliver Sacks’s The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. And maybe therein lies the problem. A 46‑year‑old man attempting to write a play about the psychological unravelling of a middle‑aged married mother, based on the work of another man, is unlikely to produce a convincing outcome. This issue is compounded by the fact that Sacks only experienced a long-term relationship in the last six years of his life, but even then did not cohabit with Bill Hayes, and has since been exposed for colouring outside of the lines of truth, is likely to leave much wanting. Hardly the most credible inspiration. No wonder why this is the only one of Ayckbourn’s 92 plays that I have seen. Not every playwright has Chekov’s subtlety and genius necessary to create an Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina.

The first half was not great, but it had some potential. The audience finds itself directly inside Susan’s fractured mind, perceiving the world from her vantage point. She is clearly unhappy with her life, feeling she has little to show for it. She also feels unloved by the two men in her life – husband and son. And she feels taken advantage of – expected to run the entire house for her husband and his sister with no support or gratitude. So her subconscious conjures up a fantasy life with a loving, affluent family that worship her – a husband who finds her sexually alluring, a daughter who treats her like a best friend, a charming rouge of a brother that adores her. In her escapist reality, she is a renowned writer, not “just” a stay-at-home mum whose son no longer speaks to her.

But the extent of her dissatisfaction feels insufficiently grounded. Her household chores are not set against the backdrop of a demanding career; her husband might not be the most supportive, but he provides for a comfortable existence and does not seem unreasonably demanding. Most importantly, there is no indication that she was coerced into these life choices; quite the opposite – she clarifies that this is what she wanted.

This creates an interesting backdrop for exploring why she might feel so unfulfilled, and a strong second part could have turned some of the weaknesses of the first half around. How did she contribute to the situation she finds herself in? How is she complicit in her son’s estrangement? Did she drive her husband away? Will she acknowledge that her feelings of desperation are at least partially of her own making? The second half, however, disintegrated into a messy farce that rendered the entire play completely pointless. Susan can no longer distinguish between reality and her imagined existence, but the blend of the two conveys no message and tells us nothing about her. It provides no answers and raises no questions.

And if this were not enough, the portrayal of the sister‑in‑law was frankly offensive: a woman unable to move on after her husband’s death, mocked and ridiculed for no apparent purpose. With Doctor Bill, the play really did not require additional comedic relief.

I’m hoping this was simply my first bad crêpe of the year – the one you discard because the pan wasn’t hot enough – and that all the next ones come out perfectly. Fingers crossed.