Theatre review: The Rivals

Tom Littler's theme for Christmas shows at the Orange Tree seems to be Jazz Age relocations for classic comedies, and this year he goes back to Restoration Comedy to move Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals from 1775 to 1927. Lydia Languish (Zoe Brough) is a fan of torrid romantic novels and wouldn't consider a romance of her own that wasn't suitably anguished, so her aristocratic suitor Captain Jack Absolute (Kit Young) is wooing her in disguise as a lowly sergeant: He knows she would never be interested in him if he had her family's approval. In fact Jack's father Sir Anthony (Robert Bathurst) has been busy arranging a marriage between his son and Lydia, so when the latter finds out she determines to reject Jack Absolute in favour of the fictional Beverley, and Jack finds himself his own biggest rival.

He also has a couple of real rivals in yokelish country gentleman Bob Acres (Dylan Corbett-Bader) and Colm Gormley's Lucius O'Trigger, here a gun-loving American; the latter thinks he's the favourite thanks to love letters he believes come from Lydia, but are actually from her elderly aunt.

This is the play's most famous character, Mrs Malaprop, whose mangling of the English language remains the most reliable source of comedy in the play. Today Miranda Foster read in the role due to the indisposition of Patricia Hodge, a game performance after, apparently, zero rehearsal, with the rest of the cast helping her along and making sure she hit her marks. I did wonder if there had been problems in the company earlier on in rehearsals as there's still a bit of a tentative, shaky feel even to scenes she doesn't appear in.

The whole thing did feel a lot more confident after the interval though, and Littler's production gets in a lot more of its own little bits of comic business, including a setpiece in a cathedral that sees the characters trying to deliver exposition to each other while pretending to sing hymns. There's also a few tweaks to the script to deliver gags more suitable to the 1920s setting, as well as the obligatory, anachronistic for both the 18th and 20th centuries, reference to The Traitors.

The secondary romantic pairing of Faulkland (James Sheldon) and Julia (Boadicea Ricketts) don't really make much of an impact although that may be more to do with the writing than the production. But after a wobbly start the production generally builds up a head of steam, helped by Joëlle Brabban's servant Lucy breaking into a few jazzy numbers along the way; once they get their full cast, and the little bit of missing confidence back, the company should be able to get this back on track as a consistently entertaining evening.

The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan is booking until the 24th of January at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.