Fabulous Restoration of a multifaceted gem
THE WAY OF THE WORLD ★★★★ Donmar Warehouse, until May 26. Tickets: 020 3282 3808
WRITTEN in 1700, William Congreve’s comedy of bad manners, double dealings and elaborate social manoeuvres is an exquisite, multifaceted gem of Restoration theatre. The complex plot involves labyrinthine attempts by various venal types to acquire the legacy of the ageing Lady Wishfort (Haydn Gwynne) through marriage, scams and other means more foul than fair.
It is populated by preening fops and spiky women whose vanity is offset by their cunning, coming across as Oscar Wilde’s version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
James Macdonald directs with admirable attention to the text and without unnecessary flourishes, making for a fine example of a period comedy that retains all of its humour for a modern audience.
With few exceptions, the cast inhabit their rarefied world with alacrity. Geoffrey Streatfeild’s Mirabell is lovelorn without being soppy and his underhand friend Fainall (Tom Mison) is a fop with a heart of stone. Fisayo Akinade’s Witwoud is so fastidiously witty he could have been born in the period while Justine Mitchell’s statuesque Millamant resists Mirabell’s advances with a capricious neuroticism and an Irish burr.
Gwynne’s Lady Wishfort is magnificently self-delusional, dressed in material that would cover a chintz three-piece suite and looking like walking floribunda.
Her delivery of the line “I look like an old peeled wall” strikes the right balance between humour, horror and pathos. A fine, intelligent production. count their (probably) ill-gotten gains in billions, the song that gave rise to the world’s most successful TV gameshow seems outdated.
But back when Chris Tarrant ruled the bastard child of Double Your Money and Mastermind, a million pounds was serious dosh. And the scandal of the “Coughing Major” who was convicted of cheating his way to the big cheque in 2003 was international news.
James Graham’s play Quiz has transferred from a successful run at Chichester Festival Theatre.
The first half is a kind of potted history of TV gameshows with a plot attached as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is pitched to sceptical TV executives then transmitted with great success. The Ingram family, particularly pub quiz obsessive Diana (Stephanie Street), see an opportunity to make big bucks and they take turns to get on the show.
Diana’s husband Charles (Gavin Spokes) is a British Army major, primed for the quiz by his ambitious wife and assisted by mysterious Welsh nerd Tecwen Whittock (Mark Meadows) who coughs to guide Charles to the correct answers.
The second half focuses on the subsequent court case and the audience is invited to vote on whether Charles is innocent or guilty even as the facts become increasingly uncertain.
Daniel Evans’ production is part-gameshow and part-trial and skips along merrily enough as it attempts to tie all the elements together. However it is looking a little faded. The TV studio set with its garish neon and huge screens was trounced by the National Theatre’s production of Network. The audience-as-jury, in which we are given electronic keypads to vote guilty or innocent, is an overused device (last year’s Terror at the Lyric Hammersmith did it far more effectively).
And the reliance on a comprehensive knowledge of pop culture from the golden age of gameshows such as Take Your Pick, Bullseye and The Price Is Right is a fundamental weakness. Who under the age of 60 will identify Leslie Crowther or Des O’Connor, however amusingly Keir Charles impersonates them?
The Coughing Major scandal is a prism through which we examine British society and its values, political manipulation, the legal system and even the nature of theatre itself.
How can we distinguish between truth and lies, fact and fiction? Given the current concerns over fake news and with social media under the microscope, Quiz is so timely that it seems more penetrating than it is.