After having a summer hit last year with
Volpone, the RSC bring Ben Jonson back to the Swan
with his most famous farce,
The Alchemist. It was Jonson's way of helping the
London of 1610 deal with its biggest horror, the annual return of the Plague,
through comedy: Every summer the wealthy would escape the city for their country
homes away from all the death, and so at the start of the play does Lovewit (Hywel
Morgan,) leaving his servant Jeremy in charge of his townhouse. But Jeremy is
actually the con-man Face, who plans to use the house as his base of operations to
trick the greedy and gullible out of their cash. After he stole his scenes in her
AsYou Like It last year, director Polly Findlay brings Ken Nwosu back to
Stratford-upon-Avon with her to play a frenetic Face, who acts as the front-man for a con
that promises to turn base metal into gold.
