IT might be coincidence or even deliberate programming but there are without doubt numerous echoes from last week’s Malvern offering in this classic by George Bernard Shaw.

Previously, audiences were given a glimpse of a Ripper-haunted Whitechapel and its prostitutes. And following on from this we now have what could almost be called a sequel as a stone is lifted to reveal Victorian morality as nothing but a sham… and an evil one at that.

It is 1893. Vivie Warren (Emily Woodward) has benefited from a university education solely because her mother has been able to pay the fees thanks to her work in the world’s oldest profession.

Slowly but surely, Shaw peels away the thin veneer of respectability to expose the hypocrisy of an age that was nevertheless on the cusp of a change in the fortunes of women.

Vivie is little more than a moralising little prig but the stupendous Mrs Warren (Sue Holderness) is unrepentant. Everything you have has been paid for by me… please let’s have less of your synthetic outrage, she seems to be saying.

There are some magnificent exchanges between the two and it’s not long before the men come into their own. All of them – apart from the young Frank Gardner (Ryan Saunders) - have known Mrs Warren in the biblical sense and so the tension soon builds.

Christopher Timothy as Sir George Crofts peddles a particularly unpleasant brand of upper class manipulation and the Rev Samuel Gardner (Richard Derrington) soon allows his mask of clerical piety fall to reveal a simpering weakling.

Meanwhile, Christopher Bowen (Praed) comes across as a kind of mediator or counsellor who must attempt to unravel this complex tangle of relationships.

Shaw encountered fierce Establishment resistance when this work was first published and it’s not hard to see the reason why. Well over a century later, it’s heartening to see how far we have come, although it’s also obvious how some attitudes regrettably persist to this day.

Directed by Paul Milton, this magnificent play runs until Saturday (August 1).