GEORGIANS IN THE PINK, AND SOMEWHAT PUNK
Sheridan’s social satire from the 1770s hits the age of fake news, viral reputation-trashing and post-imperial embarrassment. There are knowing readjusted gags, witty cringes of embarrassment whenever anyone’s East Indies wealth is mentioned, artfully adapted doggerel pre & post-ludes and some fine Dad-dance choreography to drum-synth rhythms to update the harpsichord. But no modernization was not going to deprive us of 18c spectacle, no sir! We are reassured about that from the first moment, when the cast rise from the floor led by Siubhan Harrison as Lady Sneerwell in a towering Mr-Whippy wig and pannier skirts so wide that – to general applause – all her entrances and exits along the walkways have to be done scuttling sideways.
Alex Lowde’s designs are indeed a riot: if – as I recommend – you book in with a gang of mates or family or, God help us, a hen night, it might be fun for everyone to dress in violent pink, with edges of black and champagne. The two worst villains – sinuous Snake the letter-forger and hypocritical Joseph Surface- are both in black, but everyone else male and female is mostly pretty riotous and frankly camp. Rarely will you see a more preposterous display of hip-popping hetero-camp than in John Leader’s dissipated hero Charles, though Patrick Walshe McBride plays him close as the simpering poet Benjamin Backbite. As for Mrs Candour’s outfit, words fail me.
They never, of course, fail her. Sheridan is a magnificently, rattlingly wordly playwright and director Tinuke Craig’s cast give the rhetoric, expostulation and rapidfire dialogue a crackling energy . The plot is familiar down the centuries: hypocrisy, plots to expose it, lies both malicious and absurd, decency triumphant at last, but the Brinsley Sheridan way to handle it is with the lightness of pink meringue. Craig responds to this spirit by treating the whole thing more as a lark than angry satire: there is little real darkness. The famous set-pieces are terrific: I enjoyed the scornful auction of Charles’ ancestral portraits (sharp for the period, or indeed any time in our time-lag, class-aware monarchy). There’s a fine screen scene with the hidden Lady Teazle, formerly a contemptuous shopaholic party-girl, suddenly understanding the devoted decency of her older husband. Tara Tijani does both moments beautifully.
The fun rollicks on, pleasingly ridiculous and spectacular, and the physicality is a delight. The servants whip around in strange pajama suits, making themselves felt in the narration; Stefan Adegbola illustrates Joseph’s pious hypocrisy in nice period style by constantly falling into Garrick-y poses to deliver his moral precepts. Leader’s Charles drops the camp wriggling when he needs to, and shades it into a mere overspill of teenage energy; Geoffrey Streatfeild is a properly touching Peter Teazle and Wil Johnson overdoes it just enough as his stately colonial millionaire Sir Oliver masquerades in turn as a moneylender and a needy relative.
It’s fun, sportingly silly, and gets good old Sheridan’s moral point home though without with all the painless feathery swish of the ostrich plumes which tower over the ladies’ heads. A special mention for whoever got Walshe McBride to wear his hair like that.
Rsc.org. To 6 september
rating 4
theatreCat 