Before the ending there are two parts of Close of Play which are entirely successful. The first is a brief conversation between the mercurial Marianne and the controlled Margaret, on the subject of the reviews of Margaret's latest novel. The faux pas of the not altogether unmalicious Marianne will be familiar to everyone who has friends and has written a book. This brief episode is both amusing and authentic. The second incident is not at all funny, but it is very brilliant…. [Henry] in his story showing how a doctor may without realising it until it is too late become a seducer of one of his patients, and unable to rescue himself from the sequel of his mistake, passes with enviable ease from confident insouciance to desperate bitterness in his accusations against his silent and unresponsive father for having brought him into the world. Mr. Gray takes a sour view of the world; and this sourness is … reflected in Henry's sexual stumble…. (p. 41)

[The] resemblance in plan of Close of Play to Otherwise Engaged is deceptive. The effect that … Mr. Gray is building up to in Close of Play is the shock of surprise contained in the piece's last revelation, which is the confession made to the whole family by Daisy. This revelation has been signalled all through the play. We await it, and we expect that it will be the culmination, the climax, the crowning point of all the horrors whose existence have been revealed to us during the evening. But when it comes it is nothing of the kind. It is not the demonstration of climactic misery, but the assertion of a radiant happiness … [which] gives to the play a truly magnificent ending. (pp. 41-2)