Neglected playwright
A minimalist and ingenious setting which used a passage through the audience as well as a traditional-ish stage was the setting for the witty and acerbic dialogue of the Irishman who later became Foreign Secretary under the noxious George III and then died, disappointed, in poverty.

Many see eighteenth-century theatre as a cultural desert between the Jacobean nasties, the ephemeral Restoration comedies and the age of Wilde, Synge and Shaw (all Irish again, curiously) in late Victorian times. This is not entirely accurate – as witness the works of William Congreve, Sir John (he designed Castle Howard) Vanburgh and, later in the century, Sheridan's output, of which The Rivals is arguably the masterpiece.

Sheridan was a shrewd observer of the foibles of his time, and mercilessly sent up the more pretentious and less savoury social niceties of late Georgian England. Unfortunately, many of these behaviours can still be seen today, which is another reason this play deserves more frequent performances, apart from the fact that it is great fun to watch. The plot is based around a fairly stock love-romance-action-deception scenario with a duel tacked on, and this production picked up on all these different aspects of the piece.

Period feel …
After a slow start the audience was soon responding to the visual and spoken gags, including the famous malapropisms, which Dora Bryan and Hylda Baker would later make their own. There was some good individual, idiomatic and sometimes hilarious characterisation from the cast, though the occasional lack of clarity (despite a wonderful Irish accent!) and slackness in pace lessened the overall tension now and then. More kerchief-waving and beauty marks (but not too much) would have put icing onto the cake.

… from men …
There was some very stylish playing - none of it overtly derivative, either - from the men. The quarrelsome Sir Anthony Absolute (Jim "What the devil is going on NOW?' Bowman) and his wayward son Jack (Jerome "Cheshire Life's favourite centrefold' Burch) gave mature, robust and vivid portrayals of the difficulties of family life, though I expected a little more physical domestic violence (the' Cheshire Life' quotation was in the programme, but Absolute's line is Sheridan's). It's a very non-PC play anyway, thankfully, and I gather Jack's actual costume was some 200 years old, so hardly suited for beatings.

Alex Jones' performance as the foppish Faulkland was one of the most striking and convincing I have seen from a non-professional actor in many years. His face, words, his whole body were subsumed into the character, and his excellent diction belied the fact that he is a first-year management student who had never acted before.

… and women
The ‘fairer sex', as Sheridan would have put it, worked extremely hard, too, ranging from the coquettish through priggishness and vanity towards slagdom. The scene in Act V, where Faulkland and Julia (Siobhan Doyle) discuss their love, was as beautifully tender as it was controlled. Also stunning was Sarah de Block as Lydia Languish. Again, excellent diction, beautiful phrasing – all the more surprising is that she is French, and English her second language. That is a fine and extraordinary achievement.

"Remarkable'
In all, a remarkable production from Director Greg Smith, who is but one among some very able young men and women whom I believe and hope will go far on whichever stage they choose. They will certainly make good teachers (though perish that thought) and excellent managers – but it's all the same thing really.

I have already noted a couple of minor flaws – and there were others. So what - given that the performance was put together over five weeks at nine hours rehearsal per week, and that hardly any of the cast had acted before, those peccadillos become irrelevant.

This was a very impressive production indeed. I am heartily glad that student theatre continues to thrive and develop here in Lancaster – and in the City as well as on campus.

Copyright © 9 February 2004 Michael Nunn

Follow these links for the seperate reviews of
Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett, and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
plus an overview of the season.

See also a preview of next term's LUTG season