Flashing swords, swirling capes and fancy footwork – if these are what you expect from a staging of Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 novel, you will not be disappointed. Theresa Heskins’s new version of this much-adapted swashbuckling adventure offers action thrills aplenty, from start to finish. Where it’s less sure-footed is in developing a plot that grips and characters whose dreams we can share.
The opening sets up a double situation that never fully develops. We seem to be about to follow two intertwined stories. Country boy D’Artagnan (wide-eyed Lemar Moller) sets out to make his fortune at the court of Louis XIII; he wants to defend the queen (ditsy, cake-loving Emma Symmonds). Oppressed servant Milady (fast-talking, hard-fighting Charlotte Price) also dreams of making her fortune – through theft and cunning. Their paths collide – literally – in the big city where Milady, outnumbered, is saved by Perry Moore’s dastardly Cardinal, who realises he can make use of her talents for deception.
