A most handsome tale of Waugh
BRIDESHEAD Revisited has been the jewel of the heritage TV industry ever since the 1981 series starring Anthony Andrews, Jeremy Irons and Diana Quick.
But as with the 2008 film, the star of any adaptation has always been Castle Howard — the 18thcentury pile that inspired Evelyn Waugh to write about a young artist falling in with flamboyantly unstable English aristocrats.
So it was brave to stage the book without enlisting the magnificent Palladian backdrop — let alone the rose-tinted views of Oxford, Venice and Tangiers. But that doesn’t stop dramatist Bryony Lavery encompassing Waugh’s sprawling grandeur.
She relates it as impressionist memories in this handsome show for the re-opening of the Theatre Royal after its £6 million refit. So one cannot just zone out in a warm bath of fragrant nostalgia. Instead we grapple with Waugh’s guilty Roman Catholicism — and designer Sara Perks’ set is almost Protestant in its minimalism.
Otherwise the cast guides Damian Cruden’s production. Brian Ferguson brings complexity to Charles Ryder. Christopher Simpson is effortlessly childlike as Sebastian, Rosie Hilal is outstanding as troubled sister Julia and Nick Blakeley prickles as the acerbic Anthony Blanche.
The closing death throes of Lord Marchmain feel interminable, but overall this is an engaging show that keeps faith with Waugh’s seriousness as much as his dreaminess.
PATRICK MARMION