Theatre review: The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers

Best-remembered today as England's first female professional writer (although it turns out in the 19th Century her name was a euphemism for a reet dorty hoor, society having decided that "female professional writer" wasn't actually something they were ready for yet, thanks,) Aphra Behn's most famous play is The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers. The subtitle sets the action a couple of decades before the play's writing, during the exile of the prince who would eventually be Restored as Charles II. His followers, equally unwelcome in England during Cromwell's rule, had a mixed reputation, seen by some as accomplished soldiers, by others as thrill-seekers lacking morals. Behn gives us just such a mixed picture - veering towards the latter - in her quartet of Cavaliers who end up in an unnamed Spanish town during Carnival season, and intend to make the most of its spirit.

Theatre review: The Rover, or, The Banish'd Cavaliers

Helping to fill a relatively quiet August is a list of firsts: My first trip to the New Diorama, and my first time seeing a play by Aphra Behn - herself England's first-ever professional female playwright. Sadly although there's unmistakable signs that the play itself is an interesting example of a rather dark Restoration comedy, Pell Mell theatre company didn't make anywhere near as good a first impression. In The Rover three (or possibly four - the identity of some of the supporting characters are among the many things that are a bit vague here) English cavaliers arrive in Naples during a carnival and proceed to pursue the local women: Whether, like Belville (Leo Marcus Wan) this means trying to secure the hand in marriage of his true love or, like Willmore (Felix Trench) it means trying to get into the pants of the city's many prostitutes, preferably for free.