If the idea of watching a Victorian farce by a less frequently staged playwright seems like peculiarly old-fashioned entertainment, this production is a startling reminder of how our own world can be deliciously sent up by the past.
In the right hands, of course. Nancy Carroll, better known as an actor, brings an adaptation of Arthur Wing Pinero’s 1890 comedy that is as sparkling as they come – springy, silly and full of satirical sting.
The butt of ridicule is the British class system and the profligate political class: the cabinet minister here, Sir Julian Twombley (Nicholas Rowe), has been accused of “accepting favours”. He and his lavishly overspending wife, Kitty (played by Carroll), would not seem out of place amid a Labour party contending with scandal over gifts.
The plot is a confection of financially savvy marriage proposals, illicit passions and insider trading. Conniving siblings who attempt to blackmail their way into high society are thrown into the mix (Phoebe Fildes and Laurence Ubong Williams, both magnificent). There is also a busybody (played by Sara Crowe), a Scottish dowager (Dillie Keane), her henpecked son (Matthew Woodyatt) and various other family intrigues, including a will-they-won’t-they romance between Sir Julian’s debutante daughter (Rosalind Ford) and a Victorian trustafarian (George Blagden).
Directed by Paul Foster, the production is immaculate in its execution and does not strain for its double meanings or nod-wink crassly to modern-day parallels; there are no mentions of free glasses or the use of £18m flats. These ridiculous characters speak for themselves and the cast are so adept at the farcical elements that it never feels frantic or clownishly overplayed on Janet Bird’s elegant set design.
Pinero’s secrets, duplicities and pointedly named social climbers harken to the tropes of restoration comedy. In a lesser production, it might all seem derivative or chaotic. But here there is a great build-up of intrigue, driving towards a portrait of a distasteful elite that never gets its comeuppance.
Carroll’s Kitty is charmingly entitled politician’s wife without a moral bone in her expensively attired body, while Rowe’s dithering minister, mired in political scandal, resembles the genially venal character of Hugh Abbot in The Thick of It as he tries to argue his way out of controversy. “It’s simply a question of interpretation,” he says, and it sounds like the stuff of our news headlines.
There is no stage comedy out there quite so funny, and this is as frothily enjoyable as it is pertinent. A must-see for all, current cabinet ministers notwithstanding.
