Persuasion
(Picture: Andy Paradise)Jane Austen is the undisputed queen of the kind of suppressed urges, snatched meetings and longing glances that fill Bridgerton Season 2. But what if her characters acted the way they felt? In director Jeff James’s ruthlessly 21st-century retelling of Persuasion, if our protagonist Anne (Sasha Frost) likes someone, she doesn’t just flutter her hands modestly, she snogs them. If she’s fed up with them, she pushes them off the back of the stage (sometimes, they bounce back up again on a concealed trampoline). Diehard Janeites might well be horrified.
Or, equally, they might well find a lot to like in this bold and boisterous update. It sticks closely to the outlines of Austen’s original story, but colours them in with neon instead of sepia: designer Alex Lowde’s set is a nightclub-like concoction of bright blue latex and strip lighting. Some of the updates are wry: “Bath is quite blighted by modern architecture”, says Anne, explaining why she hates her family’s new home. And some are blunter, like the blisteringly surreal dance breaks to songs like Robyn’s Dancing on my Own or Cardi B’s WAP.
