Review: The Rivals at The Orange Tree

As a theatrical winter warmer, Sheridan’s The Rivals has just the right qualities of wit and compassionate understanding of human foibles to delight, and in its new incarnation at the Orange Tree, updated from the late eighteenth-century to the Roaring Twenties, it shines as brightly as ever, courtesy of Tom Littler’s effervescent and engaging production. 

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OUR VERDICT

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Ellie Kurttz

The decision to shift the date generally (but keep the Bath setting, beautifully conjured by the floor map of the city) works really well with its emphasis on P.G.

Wodehouse’s Wooster world is complete with a helpful manservant (Gieves being a nod to Jeeves and Wooster) and social faux pas galore. Cars replace carriages, it’s a Charleston rather than a cotillion,  with ‘clarity the watchword’ apparently and this it absolutely achieves, celebrating its 250th anniversary in style.

It's 1927 now, and heiress Lydia Languish is enamoured of Sergeant Beverley, unaware that he’s really the affluent Captain Absolute, who’s keeping his identity secret as Lydia, a fan of romance novels, infinitely prefers the idea of a penniless suitor and elopement to any notion of stodgy comfort.

Her overbearing aunt, Mrs Malaprop (the wonderful Patricia Hodge, all fluttering pink feather boas and mangled words), has her own covert flirtation to conceal whilst Lydia’s friend Julia is smitten with possibly the most neurotic man in England, Absolute’s hapless chum, ‘Faulty’ Faulkland. 

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Ellie Kurttz

Like the best comedies from this era, social machinations and romantic misunderstandings are rife, and the lightness of touch that the new milieu bestows is perfect for Sheridan’s delicious comedy of manners, where the characters’ names betray their inclination.

The way dance is used to stylishly link scenes is one of the production’s singular strengths, as is its music, actor Kit Young bringing particular style to the former.

All the cast of twelve (the theatre’s largest since its Arts Council grant cut) embrace their roles with relish, Zoe Brough is a convincingly torpid heroine, and Robert Bathurst has great fun as patriarch Sir Anthony Absolute, intent on making his son conform to his own rather shifting standards.

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Ellie Kurttz

Patricia Hodge, in the plum role of the linguistically-challenged Mrs Malaprop, invests her with real poignancy as well as lampooning her social pretensions.

In support, Pete Ashmore’s valet has a lovely bathtime scene with young Absolute when the latter chats to his rubber duck Quackers, not an easy scene to accomplish! 

There’s so much to enjoy here. The deft lightness of touch that’s essential is palpable throughout, and there’s no sense of anything modish for the mere sake of change; it captures all the essence of the original play whilst offering a fresh perspective that can only enhance its appeal.