Handsome, clever and rich Emma Woodhouse finds new ways to exercise her charm in Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel from 1816. Claire O’Reilly’s pop-powered production ramps up the arch comedy and artifice in a fluorescent, Regency-lite setting, which exists somewhere in an Austenland informed by screen adaptations from Clueless to Netflix’s Persuasion, with a hint of classical Hollywood romcoms in set designer Molly O’Cathain’s sweeping stairs. What is retained from Austen’s social satire is the wealthy, leisured milieu of the characters.
Indulged by her widowed father, the hyperactive Emma (Toni O’Rourke) fills her days by manipulating the relationships of people around her. Fancying herself a matchmaker, she takes gawky teenager Harriet (Hannah Mamalis) under her wing, persuading her that the unctuous vicar Mr Elton (Domhnall Herdman) would be a brilliant catch. Mamalis brings puppyish energy to her absurdly gauche character, gulping down the biscuits that Emma throws at her in reward for her devotion.
