Tuesday 25th February 2020 at Leeds Playhouse (Courtyard).
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Not all takes on revered classics are created equal, and the sad truth is that many fall short when it comes to revolutionising or reinvigorating the titans they optimistically take on. On to that precarious theatre scene walks the writer of this piece… With an eyebrow raised mischievously at the Jane Austen purists and a welcome promise of rule-breaking and mayhem for the rest of us, Isobel McArthur offers a gutsy, song-filled reimagining in a league of its own, as told by the maids left by the wayside in Austen’s margins. It’s a rare delight to sit writing a review between intervals of spontaneous laughter but here I am, having re-lived all my favourite bits to reach a glowing conclusion. Settle in folks, this one’s a love-fest.
Hannah Jarrett-Scott and McArthur take on the boldest of Austen’s creations. Jarrett-Scott is in truth quite astonishing to watch, impressing tenfold as she dashes all guns blazing between starkly different characters. From the deeply sympathetic Charlotte to the lumbering bumbling Bingley and over to the comedy GOLD that is Caroline Bingley, she gives the kind of performance you can’t describe to anyone else without cracking up.
It’s a similar story with McArthur’s fabulous transformations. Mrs Bennet, mother of the burden that is so many unwed daughters, is a treasure of a character and what McArthur does is simply raise the stakes. By basking wholeheartedly in the merciless melodrama of this mother and adding a generous dose of surprising near/full expletives in a winning boom, she has us in stitches in no time.
And with a swish of a quick-change we meet McArthur’s Darcy – the first and only Darcy to convince me there are some saving graces to the character. What’s so impressive about this rendition is that it’s such a sharply drawn combination of a comic caricature of the entitled male and a sincere take on Austen’s intense original, with those all important key scenes played beautifully straight. He’s brooding heartthrob Darcy but he’s also a gleeful mockery of the character and all he stands for. Brilliant stuff.
Ultimately though, this is an ensemble piece and a cast of six with talents as broad and as brazen as Mrs Bennet’s social climbing carry the production. Elizabeth Bennett (Meghan Tyler) gets an extraordinary make-over (and under) here as she characteristically takes no nonsense…only much more bluntly than Austen could ever venture.
Tyler’s Elizabeth is still charming and funny, intelligent and thoroughly likeable but she gets incongruous freedoms that we can all enjoy being party to: sitting atop a piano like a rigger on break; swigging wine and inhaling the odd ciggie when times get rough; saying what she means in the most entertainingly exact terms. And Lizzie is also at intervals very tender of course, making this a cracking, audacious characterisation of one of our most beloved heroines.
Christina Gordon offers one of the most faithfully Austen characterisations in the shape of delicate, romantic Jane… though naturally she too gets her time in the limelight of modernisation as she drinks away disappointment and bawls into a mic in a brilliant moment of cathartic song. And in her Lady Catherine de Burgh role Gordon takes an altogether different form and proves herself capable of both the Honey and the Trunchbull of the piece.
The hilarious Tori Burgess flips brilliantly between the teen-rifically self-centred Lydia and the tragi-comic young Mary. With drab dresses and specs assisting, Burgess brings it home and leaves us helplessly chuckling away as poor Mary faces her many challenges. Felixe Forde in turn offers us a Kitty who bears the burden of an overzealous sister so very well, a smug George Wickham you’d quite like to see get his comeuppance in slow motion and a thoroughly insufferable Mr Collins…
Paul Brotherston’s direction is as impressive as the cast. As far as pace and precision go, it’s a wonder to think the show runs as 2.45 with interval. Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s fabulous set hints at Regency era indulgence but wisely steers clear of excessive fuss while her costume designs (lengthy jackets disguising maid’s dresses by the millisecond) are ingeniously efficient. Emily Jane Boyle’s playful choreography and Simon Hayes’ expressive lighting add further polish to an already heavily perfected production.
Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) is a thoroughly vibrant production borne of impeccable stagecraft. Part gig-theatre, part affectionate retelling of a great tale and part fearless pursuit of hilarity, there’s quite literally never a dull moment here. I’d like to think that if the sassy Austen we know and love were alive and swinging both fists at the patriarchy in 2020, it might look a good deal like this. So brilliant is it in fact, that I’m going back before it flits off to its next tour stop – tickets are few to none for Leeds Playhouse so don’t dilly dally!
Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of) is a Blood of the Young and Tron Theatre Company production presented by Leeds Playhouse and The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh. It plays Leeds Playhouse until February 29th 2020 and you can* (*might, if you’re lucky) find tickets here. The show tours until April 11th 2020 and you can find tour information via the Twitter page (@BOTYtheatre).
Always Time For Theatre 