May 13, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised by this thoroughly delicious confection. Mid-eighteenth-century comedy can be a bit of an acquired taste, but thanks to the excellence of director Helen McCabe’s adaptation – judicious deletions here, subtle modernizations there – the script came across as witty, fresh, and modern enough in tone to make it perfectly accessible, while not losing the charm and cadence of the original.
Money-grubbing nouveau-riche merchant Mr Sterling (love those speaking names!) wants to buy his way into the aristocracy by marrying off his elder daughter Betsey to impoverished young baronet Sir John Melvil. Unfortunately Sir John takes more of a shine to his younger daughter Fanny, and though Mr Sterling is perfectly amenable to brokering a new deal with Sir John for the delectable Fanny, there is an unfortunate spanner in the works – Fanny is already married, in secret, to his clerk Mr Lovewell (you see what I mean?). Cue huge complications equal to the height of early twentieth century bedroom farce, with Sir John’s randy old uncle Lord Ogleby (really) getting in on the act, and Betsey and her horrid rich aunt Mrs Heidelberg determined to ruin Fanny’s chances and get their revenge on her.
It is no small tribute to the cast and director that they managed to create and sustain the imaginary world of the play and invoke the emotional involvement of the audience in such a difficult venue. The ante-chapel of Merton chapel, though beautiful in a forbidding, late-medieval way, is a huge, cold, dark, echoey space, a natural amplifier with plenty of reverb for even the tiniest human voice. Heavy with the patriarchal past and the presence of the dead, it doesn’t feel like a place that has been at home to any proceedings more jolly than early-modern choral music, but it does resonate with the more sombre themes underlying the sparkling repartee – for fathers treating their daughters as commodities is by no means an issue confined to the past, with sixty thousand forced marriages of teenage girls in our own dear country in recent years. Tip Top Productions has adopted the sensible measure of importing older actors to leaven the mix with their talented students; resulting in a cast strong enough to transcend the wobbly scenery and inhabit the imaginary chambers, galleries, and gardens of Mr Sterling’s country house. They had to work hard for their success, but they certainly did it and by the second half tentative titters had developed into actual laughing out loud, and a delicious anticipation of what catastrophes would befall the hapless hero and heroine next.
Arabella Lawson was a scrumptious Fanny, pretty, slender, sympathetic, and she suffered exquisitely in company with Edmond Boullé as her very appealing husband. Lavinia Singer managed to be both very funny and beautiful as the mercenary, selfish and vindictive Betsey, delivering the play’s famous line, “Love and a cottage? Give me indifference and a coach-and-six.” with squeaky panache. Michael Dacre was splendid as Mr Sterling, pitching his oafish plebeian vigour against the effete aristocrats with a touch of Ray Winston-esque menace, and Colin Barrie was a delight as elderly roué with a heart of gold Lord Ogleby, constantly self-medicating and applying his own makeup – you just know that if he were around now he’d be munching Viagra like popcorn. Sir John Melvil was brilliantly personated by Laith Dilaimi, as a man in whom inbred charm barely conceals his many anxieties, and who convincingly develops a conscience by the end of the play. I haven’t space to commend everyone. A superb production of a very warm and charming and funny play – dress warm, and go see it! Strongly recommended.
Money-grubbing nouveau-riche merchant Mr Sterling (love those speaking names!) wants to buy his way into the aristocracy by marrying off his elder daughter Betsey to impoverished young baronet Sir John Melvil. Unfortunately Sir John takes more of a shine to his younger daughter Fanny, and though Mr Sterling is perfectly amenable to brokering a new deal with Sir John for the delectable Fanny, there is an unfortunate spanner in the works – Fanny is already married, in secret, to his clerk Mr Lovewell (you see what I mean?). Cue huge complications equal to the height of early twentieth century bedroom farce, with Sir John’s randy old uncle Lord Ogleby (really) getting in on the act, and Betsey and her horrid rich aunt Mrs Heidelberg determined to ruin Fanny’s chances and get their revenge on her.
It is no small tribute to the cast and director that they managed to create and sustain the imaginary world of the play and invoke the emotional involvement of the audience in such a difficult venue. The ante-chapel of Merton chapel, though beautiful in a forbidding, late-medieval way, is a huge, cold, dark, echoey space, a natural amplifier with plenty of reverb for even the tiniest human voice. Heavy with the patriarchal past and the presence of the dead, it doesn’t feel like a place that has been at home to any proceedings more jolly than early-modern choral music, but it does resonate with the more sombre themes underlying the sparkling repartee – for fathers treating their daughters as commodities is by no means an issue confined to the past, with sixty thousand forced marriages of teenage girls in our own dear country in recent years. Tip Top Productions has adopted the sensible measure of importing older actors to leaven the mix with their talented students; resulting in a cast strong enough to transcend the wobbly scenery and inhabit the imaginary chambers, galleries, and gardens of Mr Sterling’s country house. They had to work hard for their success, but they certainly did it and by the second half tentative titters had developed into actual laughing out loud, and a delicious anticipation of what catastrophes would befall the hapless hero and heroine next.
Arabella Lawson was a scrumptious Fanny, pretty, slender, sympathetic, and she suffered exquisitely in company with Edmond Boullé as her very appealing husband. Lavinia Singer managed to be both very funny and beautiful as the mercenary, selfish and vindictive Betsey, delivering the play’s famous line, “Love and a cottage? Give me indifference and a coach-and-six.” with squeaky panache. Michael Dacre was splendid as Mr Sterling, pitching his oafish plebeian vigour against the effete aristocrats with a touch of Ray Winston-esque menace, and Colin Barrie was a delight as elderly roué with a heart of gold Lord Ogleby, constantly self-medicating and applying his own makeup – you just know that if he were around now he’d be munching Viagra like popcorn. Sir John Melvil was brilliantly personated by Laith Dilaimi, as a man in whom inbred charm barely conceals his many anxieties, and who convincingly develops a conscience by the end of the play. I haven’t space to commend everyone. A superb production of a very warm and charming and funny play – dress warm, and go see it! Strongly recommended.