Daily Info sat down with Matt Kirk, the director of Summer Lightning, to chat about this upcoming production, adapting PG Wodehouse, and to see what the group has in store for audiences.
Daily Info: What’s Summer Lightning all about?
Summer Lightning is about the shenanigans that ensue at Blandings Castle when Gally Threepwood, brother of the Clarence, Earl of Emsworth, is threatening to publish his memoirs. They will be stuffed full of salacious stories from his wild youth spent running around London with most of the great and good of England - who now will do anything to stop its publication. Alongside this, young love is blooming and two members of the Emsworth Family are in relationships that would be frowned on by the formidable Lady Constance Keble - sister of the Earl and the true ruler of Blandings. Schemes are devised to ensure that wedding bells ring out. All that Clarence cares about is his beloved prize pig, The Empress of Blandings. When the pig is stolen the Earl is horrified - detectives are summoned, visitors are not who they seem and the butler is strangely jumpy. Who did steal the Empress? Why is there a German man hiding in the Gamekeeper’s cottage and what did Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe do with the prawns?
DI: This is one of the Blandings Castle stories (with eleven novels and nine short stories). Set this world up for us.
MK: Blandings Castle is the ancestral home of the Earls of Emsworth, their family and a revolving door of distant relations and hangers on. Blandings is a representation of that sort of idyllic, peculiarly English, country house existence that people get all nostalgic for and leads them to devour things like Downton Abbey, National Trust brochures and Merchant Ivory films with a corseted Helena Bonham-Carter. At Blandings there is no intrusion of historical events, problems tend to be smaller scale (only to the outsider though - Lord Emsworth would soon tell you that the theft of his pig is a national scandal!) and the gardens are always in bloom. It's the sort of England that has not, nor ever will, truly exist - but it is instantly recognisable and familiar in its unobtainable perfection. As Evylyn Waugh once wrote: "The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled.”
DI: What can audiences expect from this production?
MK: If you’re a Wodehouse fan then you’re getting a faithful production of one of his best books, full of the characters you love and the joyous dialogue that makes his work so beloved. If you’re not familiar with Wodehouse then you’re getting a fast-paced comedy full of loveable characters, a dignified butler, romance and a very big pig.
DI: How are you approaching transferring P.G. Wodehouse's text to the stage?
MK: One of the advantages of transferring Wodehouse to the stage is that there is loads of fantastic dialogue. One of the disadvantages of transferring Wodehouse to the stage is that there is LOADS of fantastic dialogue - what on earth do you leave out? You can’t keep it all and picking bits to cut is like choosing which finger you’d like to lose. I hope that I have made the right choices. Luckily the plot is relatively linear and so there were only very slight adjustments needed to keep things working on the stage and I was able to ensure minimal intrusion by the adaptor. I hope audiences will find that I have been respectful to the source material and kept in their favourite gags. I would say that the Wodehouse Estate, and their agents, have been absolutely wonderful in allowing me to do this adaptation - a big thank you to them.
DI: What does Wodehouse's story offer to modern audiences?
MK: In short - an escape. So often these days the churn of news and events is so overwhelming and stressful that it’s nice to be able to take a break from that and disappear into a world where the biggest problem is thwarted love and a missing prize pig, where the sun is shining and the butler is approaching over the lawn with a brandy and soda.
DI: Can you sum the production up in three words?
MK: Classic Wodehouse fun.
Summer Lightinings runs at the Unicorn Theatre in Abingdon from Wednesday 4th to Saturday 7th June and tickets can be found on here.