Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy is a perfect revival for the festive period for its crowd-pleasing mix of anarchic spirit, silliness and Sheridan’s own panto dame in the word-mangling Mrs Malaprop.
Tom Littler’s 250th anniversary production transposes the 18th-century play’s upper-class antics to 1920s Bath to give it a heady, flapper-ish energy with occasional song and an exuberantly Charleston-ing cast. Littler similarly adapted his production of She Stoops to Conquer to the interwar years, but now there are PG Wodehouse elements, most subtle but one blatant reference to Jeeves and Wooster – Jack Absolute’s manservant, Fag (Pete Ashmore) is renamed Gieves.
The drama’s romances bring the comic shenanigans with Jack Absolute (Kit Young) parading as the lowly Sergeant Beverley in order to woo Lydia Languish (Zoe Brough), a bright young thing who romanticises the impoverished life while “Faulty” Faulkland (James Sheldon) emanates neurosis in his wobbly amours with Julia (Boadicea Ricketts). Patricia Hodge provides the malapropisms as Lydia’s imperious aunt who has a dubious grasp on vocabulary. Rebellion ensues and duelling male bravado is sent up, all before Jack’s father, Sir Anthony Absolute (Robert Bathurst), reinstates old-school order.
It is all giddiness and froth, with an able cast, and Young a particular joy to watch for his physicality and speed. There are some sparkly eyed meta theatrical moments and a few contemporary references that slip into the period setting (one involving the TV series Traitors). Leah Harris’s movement direction is coordinated immaculately with a fast-changing set designed by Anett Black and Neil Irish.
It is bubbly but not quite champagne, lacking the hard, sharp kick of Sheridan’s satire on power, class and poverty. The humour remains playful, unserrated around the edges, as if nothing more than a game. Hodge, in a pink froufrou hat, plays Mrs Malaprop with comic breeziness and plenty of hauteur but her version of the character lacks distinctive elements, and her romantic misfire with Lucius O’Trigger (Colm Gormley) does not land in its pathos. This is a long play, and it slackens occasionally. Yet it slips down easily and feels exceedingly pleasant as a whole; stylishly silly, Christmas fun and japes.
