Empire lines with Dr Martens! What would Jane Austen think?

Pride & Prejudice * (* Sort Of) (Criterion Theatre, London) Verdict: Girl pride without prejudice! ★★★★★

WHAT a gorgeous paradox: a Pride & Prejudice that’s delightfully predictable and yet endlessly surprising. First seen at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre in 2018, this show is the brilliant, all-female brainchild of Isobel McArthur, re-spinning the well-worn yarn of Jane Austen’s novel, ostensibly from the point of view of the servants.

Although completely faithful to the book, it’s also a raucously irreverent romp, related in Empire line dresses and Dr. Martens.

The ball at Meryton, where dashing Mr Darcy first appears, serves Wagon Wheels and Irn-Bru. But much of the sugar-charged, childlike joy lies in the way the cast conjure up microphones from silver platters and then burst into karaoke caterwauling.

We kick off with Elvis Costello’s Every Day I Write The Book and The Shirelles’ Will You Love Me Tomorrow? before climaxing in a lovely rendition of Pulp’s sweetest song, Something Changed.

In between, the piece of resistance is Holding Out For A Hero (‘where have all the good men gone?’) and a very amusing snatch of Lady In Red (attributed to snooty Lady De Bourgh’s nephew ‘Chris’).

And all the while, I found myself getting more and more engrossed in a story I thought I knew backwards. McArthur judiciously includes, amid the (sometimes blithely sweary) banter, Austen’s elegant gems, such as the one about heroine Lizzie being ‘so desperate to seem at ease that ease deserted her entirely’.

And the characters positively blaze on the stage. McArthur plays the inscrutable Mr Darcy as a selfimportant stiff who’s satisfyingly redeemed. Doubling up as Mrs Bennet, she also makes sense of that character’s anxiety about her daughters and adds an unexpected seam of Yorkshire wit.

The daughters themselves are a terrific team, with Jane (Christina Gordon) a loveable teenage romantic, Lydia (Tori Burgess) a wannabe WAG, and Lizzie (Meghan Tyler) a tall, strident Ulster girl who’s actually a teeny bit credulous.

And in a touching twist, Hannah Jarrett-Scott plays the Bennets’ friend Charlotte as Lizzie’s lovelorn admirer.

Improvised on and below a sweeping staircase crammed with second-hand books, there are moments of genius including creepy Mr Collins being introduced with wet hands (after flushing the loo); and a lifesize model horse called Willy for Jane to ride to the Bingleys (cue extremely racy humour).

Conceived by, and perhaps aimed at, younger women, this is nevertheless a show for all sexes and ages — in particular the young at heart. (They might even have included that chirpy little Bluebells number in the karaoke.)

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