False jollity periodically mars Tom Littler’s handsome, starry production of Oliver Goldsmith’s 1773 comedy, which updates the action to a Wodehousian 1930s Christmas.
We’re on pretty safe ground with the central romance between Freddie Fox’s gauche Charles Marlow and Tanya Reynolds’s clever Kate Hardcastle. There’s a lovely, harumphing performance from David Horovitch as Kate’s father Richard, while Guy Hughes charms the audience with some fourth-wall breaching, ukelele-accompanied songs as her stepbrother Tony Lumpkin.
But there’s a lot of desperate mugging from the secondary couple, Marlow’s friend Hastings (Robert Mountford) and Kate’s cousin Constance (Sabrina Bartlett), and quite a bit of silly posturing from Greta Scacchi as Richard Hardcastle’s second wife Dorothy.
Tony is the child of Dorothy’s first marriage, Kate the product of Richard’s first marriage. This stuff is crucial to the plot, but regular injections of frantic comic business make the contrived misunderstandings of Goldsmith’s story less credible, rather than more so.
As Littler notes in the programme, She Stoops is a play we probably think we know, but which is rarely revived. In 34 years of London theatregoing I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, so kudos to him for programming it as his theatre’s seasonal show. It’s a story of country bumpkins outwitting London swells, with a labyrinthine plot.
Dorothy wants to marry her niece Constance to her son Tony. Despite cordially loathing each other, the youngsters maintain a pretence of flirtation so Constance can get hold of the jewels Dorothy regards as the dowry due to Tony. But – aha! – Constance was promised to Hastings by her late father. When Marlow’s father suggests he shouldhead to the country and court Kate, Hastings seizes the opportunity to tag along and whisk Constance off.
Are you keeping up? The further plot hinges on the idea that Marlow can flirt with commoners but is tongue-tied with women of his own class; that he is persuaded by roguish Tony that Hardcastle’s house is an inn; and that Kate, after an awkward first meeting with him, pretends to be a barmaid to provoke his ardour.
This sort of stuff requires absolute conviction, and gets it from the droll and poised Reynolds, who maintains crisp control of her scenes with Fox. He, usually the epitome of cocksure princeling swagger, is interesting casting for the awkward Marlow. Elsewhere, apart from Horovitch and Hughes, the acting is often amusing but inauthentic.
Does it matter? Probably not. The show is a charming Christmas package. It looks ravishing thanks to co-designers Neil Irish and Anett Black, the incidental jazz music is great, and troupes of locals have been enlisted to act as Tony’s cronies in an early tavern singalong. It’s good to see Goldsmith cheerfully revived, and I feel Scroogeish for carping.
Orange Tree Theatre, to January 13; orangetreetheatre.co.uk
