Lusty revival has two waggy stars
TWO gorgeous lurchers nearly steal the show in a largely forgotten 1700 comedy by Mary Pix. Originally The Beau Defeated, it has been renamed The Fantastic Follies Of Mrs Rich and stars Sophie Stanton as a deep-pocketed London widow who aches to marry a titled gent.
Jo Davies’s Royal Shakespeare Company production opens with four female saxophonists jamming away in period garb. Welcome to Restoration comedy with footlights and a daub of pink graffiti on the back- cloth. Alongside the story of hungry Mrs Rich, and the message that real class is invisible, is a sub-plot. Handsome nobleman Clerimont (Solomon Israel) has been denied his family inheritance. The money has gone to his older brother, a scarcely house-trained squire besotted by his hounds (enter lurchers Lossie and Theia, who tickled my 15- year- old daughter’s attention when the first half was flagging).
Miss Stanton hurls herself into the fray as Mrs Rich, curling her lip filthily, wriggling her eyebrows and generally giving it full wallop as this voracious, but shrewd, social climber.
Michael Simkins is on form as Mrs Rich’s brother- in- law. Clear- spoken Daisy Badger shows poise as some younger ‘ quality’ who falls for the penniless Clerimont.
Amanda Hadingue, as the older Clerimont’s kennel-woman, is a ringer for Princess Anne. Sadie Shimmin plays a thirsty landlady.
Other cast members are less persuasive. Neither Solomon Israel nor Tam Williams is sexy enough as the male love interests — director Davies could make the whole show more deliciously sinful — and poor Leo Wringer is miscast as the older Clerimont.
There is no way he is a honking Hooray of the sort that has infested the muddier reaches of England’s shires for centuries. He is too cool, too mature, not chinless or daft or funny enough.
Was Mr Wringer cast because he is black? If so, the RSC’s clunking approach to politically correct casting has again weakened its stage product.
I suppose its managers are under pressure from the Arts Council to tick inclusiveness boxes, but at some point they are going to have to decide if their core business is drama or social engineering.
I prefer the Swan to the main theatre next door, but directors need to beware blocking the view of audience members in the stalls. However, thanks to Lossie and Theia and Miss Stanton and Mr Simkins, the show does eventually reach a satisfying comedy simmer and you will trundle homewards glad to have seen a rare revival.
THEATRE historians may be interested in Agnes Colander, a late Victorian offering unearthed only recently. It was written by H. Granville Barker, an important figure in early 20th- century theatre and a collaborator of G.B. Shaw.
Barker was 22 when he wrote Agnes Colander and it is a dribbly affair. The show’s programme concedes that it is ‘clearly a draft’. Naomi Frederick, perfect for pukka Edwardian ladies, plays the title role. Agnes is a 30-something painter who has left her husband and takes up with barrel- chested Danish artist Otto ( Matthew Flynn). They move to France.
This being a Trevor Nunn production, the French scenes are introduced by accordion music.
Agnes tussles with her middleclass morals as she contemplates a younger, drippier admirer (slim Freddy Carter).
The play’s debates feel only semi-formed and (no fault of the cast) glacial. But I liked a supper scene, done with a proper amount of chicken-chewing.