The play has divided critical opinion from the outset. In "The Times", Irving Wardle thought that Bennett had difficulty in inventing a full-length play that would "sustain his wry, oblique talent", although this play was "his most successful experiment so far". In "The Guardian", Billington's praise was less guarded, although he found "the diagrammatic neatness of the plotting ultimately becomes slightly oppressive". In "The Daily Express" Herbert Kretzmer commented that the author "tries too hard to do too much", although he predicted a long run for the play. When the play opened on Broadway, hostile notices outweighed the favourable. Clive Barnes of "The New York Times" pronounced the piece "slight and boring"; Howard Kissel commented more approvingly, observing, "farce is an enterprise whose esthetics are not always appreciated by the undiscerning".