Theatre review: Jeannie

Aimée Stuart was a popular playwright between the wars, but she’s now virtually unheard of and her hit romantic comedy Jeannie hasn’t been performed in London since 1940. If you think this sounds like a prime candidate for the Finborough you’d be right, and Nicolette Kay brings it to Earl’s Court as this year’s light-hearted Christmas show. And light-hearted fun is definitely the order of the day, despite Jeannie (Mairi Hawthorn) starting the play as essentially an unpaid servant to her miserly father, cooking, cleaning and, her personal nemesis, washing the sheets. He’s so mean, in fact, that despite charging the neighbours to borrow a cup of milk, when he dies Jeannie discovers he’s left behind £200 in savings. Having spent her whole life forbidden from spending any money on herself, Jeannie decides to put her skills to work as a housekeeper, but not before blowing most of her inheritance on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to Vienna.

On the way she meets washing machine inventor Stanley (Matthew Mellalieu,) who helps her navigate an unfamiliar world of luxury, but a spanner is put in the works of any romance when he’s distracted by The Blonde (Madeleine Hutchins.)

It leaves Jeannie at the mercy of a dodgy Austrian Count (Patrick Pearson,) who’s very interested in the wealthy young woman without realising her funds are finite – if his moustache was a little longer he’d be twirling it. There’s no point of Jeannie at which you’re not a minimum of half an hour ahead of the story, but it doesn’t really matter. Stuart’s play is straight out of the mould of the classic rom-com, with an appealing Glaswegian heroine whose matter-of-fact approach to both poverty and riches Hawthorn brings to life (even if she does overdo Jeannie puffing her cheeks out whenever she’s flustered.) She sparks well with Mellalieu, and it’s encouraging to see Kay cast someone who doesn’t fit the mould of the traditional leading man body type. (What with the aged Count this does arguably fit into the Hollywood cliché of the attractive young woman falling for the older, less attractive man, but it is established early on that Jeannie has been conditioned to think that at 28 she herself is unmarriagably ancient.)

There are moments that show the play’s age (Vienna is rather full of shifty foreigners, and Stanley’s announcement that being a servant is the only suitable job for a woman is presumably meant to make us like him more rather than less) but Kay’s production does bring out those lines that remain funny. James Helps’ set design cleverly uses a single large backdrop that unfolds and turns into the various locations, although the scene changes themselves are a bit cumbersome. But the overall effect is of a light, consistently entertaining evening – there’s nothing sophisticated about Jeannie unless it’s the surgical precision with which it’s been designed to put a smile on your face and keep it there.

Jeannie by Aimée Stuart is booking until the 22nd of December at the Finborough Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ali Wright.