Restless

Lavish praise from pretty well every TV reviewer for William Boyd's play called "Restless". And I have to admit I found it quite exciting: the pace was fast, heaps of action, the characters were well drawn and the acting was top-notch. And yet, and yet. In retrospect I find myself confused: there were so many parts of the story I simply didn't follow. Why did the heroine go to Holland? It seemed for no purpose since when she got there she was ordered to go immediately to Belguim. Why? To spy on an activity involving a German general's defection. Did she see it? Did it occur? No idea. Why did she crawl through a toilet window to escape - from what? And who was the bloke she spoke to and why was he chased and shot? Then suddenly, towards the end of the play, the heroine's daughter (in a later period) is interrogated by the police about the suspicious activities of her husband who soon turns up and then leaves. What was he supposed to be doing there in that play since he wasn't remotely involved in any of the action.
Phew!
I could go on since the play seemed to me to be full of holes and red herrings.
One of the reviewers referred to William Boyd as "the great William Boyd". On the strength of this play I would call him "the confused and confusing William Boyd".
I have the feeling that it was one of those adaptations of a novel which required the reading of the novel before seeing the play; maybe then one would be able to follow all the trails.
When I mentioned the author to an old friend of mine he said "wasn't he a cowboy?" When you're as old as us you'd remember William Boyd from short black and white films as the character Hoppalong Cassidy. Now there is "the great William Boyd".