Theatre review: The Fair Maid of the West

My first Stratford-upon-Avon trip in six months not to get cancelled due to rail strikes is also my last show of 2023 overall, and what a warm-hearted way to wrap up the year it is. Writer/director Isobel McArthur's The Fair Maid of the West is a (very) loose rewrite of Thomas Heywood's 1631 play, set in the latter days of Elizabeth I's reign when anti-Spanish sentiment was at its peak - you can see what might have attracted McArthur to revisit a time when shifty European types were being blamed for all of England's problems at home. Plymouth barmaid Liz (Amber James) gets framed for murder, and has to accept the help of an over-enthusiastic suitor: The wealthy Spencer's (Philip Labey) family owns a number of taverns, including an abandoned pub in Cornwall she can hide in until he clears her name.

But having grown up in pubs, Liz can't help but be a natural at running one, and with the help of 13-year-old squatter Clem (Emmy Stonelake) she reopens it, using a bartender's understanding of human psychology to make it a success.

So she helps cheer up depressed divorcé Bardolf (Matthew Woodyatt) by getting him to help arrange the entertainment, channels Roughman's (Aruhan Galieva) rage issues by making him bouncer, and occasionally tries to get the narrator (Richard Katz) to help, but he can't because he's a narrative device. This crew are also joined by postman Windbag (Tom Babbage,) whose deliveries are very late but in fairness it takes time to read all those letters; and when Spencer returns Liz tries to dampen his ardour by sticking him with various menial tasks in the basement.

Striking the right balance of comedy, music and empathy, it's a cliché to call McArthur's show a winter warmer but it feels apt: The adaptation has a scattergun approach to historical accuracy, keeping the story and Ana Inés Jabares-Pita's designs in the 16th century but the references in whatever anachronistic period best serves the joke - the pub has a jukebox, as well as a regular who's memorised every song and can break into them when given the code, and the songs mostly stick around late 20th century pop and rock.

James is a warm-hearted centre to this, determined that her pub won't just be a financial success but also a community hub, and following a darker plot turn at the end of the first act, she gets to employ these skills in a more satirical second one that sees the crew go on a grim mission to Spain that suggests what international diplomacy most needs is a no-nonsense barmaid to put everyone in their place

I'm going to use the word warm again but that's what we get, from Katz' opening monologue (which reassures us that Heywood's original is still out there so nobody needs to make a fuss about the RSC rewriting it) right up to Liz helping the smitten King of Spain (David Rankine) finally get off with his hot courtier (Marc Giro.) This is welcoming, daft, progressive and political, and always endearingly funny.

The Fair Maid of the West by Isobel McArthur after Thomas Heywood is booking until the 14th of January at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ali Wright.