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.
We follow D’Artagnan’s progress through meeting with – and acceptance by – the Musketeers, Aramis (Thomas Dennis), Athos (Louis J Rhone) and Porthos (Hadley Smith). We see him fall in love with the queen’s maid, Constance (sprightly Chloe Ragrag), and achieve his ultimate goal, when he’s included in the Musketeers’ proclamation: “All for one and one for all!” However, when we meet Milady again she has already become a pawn of the Cardinal, and only really functions from now on as a feature of the plot and to make class-warrior-style comments about rich v poor.
The strength, then, of the production (Heskins also directs) lies in its presentation: sword fights; witty, genre-bending sequences of filmic slow-motion and action replay (interfered with, though, by an insistent, overloud, video game-style soundtrack). I felt the lack of dramatic development, but did the children filling the auditorium? From their rapt expressions, I guess not.
The Three Musketeers is at the New Vic theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, until 25 January 2025
