![]() ![]() This article was amended on 5 April 2012. But the real pleasure lies in seeing Goldsmith's great comedy restored to its rightful place in the repertory. Steve Pemberton adds to the merriment as the expostulating Mr Hardcastle, the transitions between scenes are filled with below-stairs choruses, created by Ben and Max Ringham, and, in Mark Thompson's design, the production looks handsome: one particular moment, when the scene shifts from a moon-dappled wood to a domestic interior, is even strangely moving. Cush Jumbo matches her well as her genteel cousin, and there is a peach of a performance from David Fynn, who reminds us that Tony Lumpkin, who sets the whole plot up, is less a rustic booby than a good-hearted manipulator. As the well-born Kate Hardcastle she is obliged, somewhat ironically in view of her role in Corrie, to pose as a barmaid, but even she gets legitimate laughs by her hip-twitching gait and air of sexual mischief. He is deftly countered by John Heffernan as his chum, Hastings, a whimsical fop who goes into sexual ecstasies over the prospect of a white-and-gold coat.īut there is slightly cooler playing from the highly impressive Kelly. Harry Hadden-Paton as Young Marlow is one moment a picture of paralysed inhibition, and the next a rampant lech pawing the ground like an impatient stallion. And when learning she has been described as "the hag" she threatens to overtake Edith Evans's famous swoop on her cry of "a handbag".Įxaggeration, falling just the right side of over-acting, is the keynote. Quizzing one of her house guests about the right age to be in London society, she retorts "I shall be too young for the fashion", making the final "o" linger in the air like a wisp of smoke. The chief beneficiary is Sophie Thompson, who plays Mrs Hardcastle, wife of the outraged house owner, with a sublime mix of rattiness and affectation, largely conveyed by the trick of mercilessly extending her vowels. But how to play it today? Lloyd's production shrewdly keeps the 18th century setting while encouraging the actors to tip us the wink that the work is an artful contrivance.
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