The Two Gentlemen of Verona - Liverpool Everyman - 11/10/2016

Since it came to life in the Everyman’s rehearsal rooms back in April, this co-production with Shakespeare’s Globe has been on a marathon tour, visiting venues across the UK and Europe before finally coming home for a 4 week run in Liverpool.

During the first day of read-throughs in April, director Nick Bagnall outlined his motives in setting this late 16th century comedy in 1966. It’s a story of young people breaking free from the tedium of their drab homelife and setting off to find excitement, adventure and love, and for Nick this immediately resonated with the youth culture and music of the 1960s. His Verona is all beige cardigans and Jim Reeves, while Milan is a very different world of long hair and flower power.

Valentine heads off to Milan while his friend Proteus remains in Verona to be with his beloved Julia, but then Proteus’s father sends him off to Milan after all. There Valentine has fallen for Sylvia, daughter of the Duke, but she is already promised by her father to Thurio. When Proteus sees a picture of Sylvia he immediately forgets his love for Julia and we’re on target for a four way tug of love, with all the deceptions and intrigues that Shakespeare goes on to use again in many of his later plays.

The period setting provides opportunities for a lot of music and, as the various love notes and messages are passed about on 7 inch vinyl, the characters break into song to deliver them. The entire cast play multiple instruments, with Guy Hughes as Valentine showing a prowess on the guitar that enables him to join the outlaws’ band in the forest.

There is much doubling of roles, with Amber James who plays Lucetta and Panthino also drawing on a moustache to bring us the self-important Thurio. Launce, servant to Proteus, is a great comic turn from Charlotte Mills, who engages wonderfully with the audience, while T J Holmes’s Speed justifies his name with a little bag of mysterious pills. When you’re touring so widely it’s not practical to have a dog in the cast, so Launce uses an ingenious device, guaranteed to raise a laugh, to bring us his dog, Crab.

The distinctively ’60s set acts like a climbing frame that the cast use every inch of, clambering up and down ladders, and Garry Cooper’s Duke revels in viewing proceedings from on high in a hugely physical performance full of exaggerated gestures.

Nick Bagnall loves the play but has never believed the problematic final scene. His solution gives us a happily ever after that isn’t shared by everyone and it really does work. His use of a song made famous by Janis Joplin brings an inspired twist and a weighty message to the ending. It’s a hugely funny production full of great performances, and by all accounts the ensemble has tightened up tremendously during the tour to give us the pacey show delivered here.

Recalling James Brown’s 1966 lyric, the play is set very much in a man’s world. It’s not intentional scheduling but it’s interesting to note nonetheless that there are many striking parallels with the patriarchal society of Sheridan’s Rivals that I reviewed last week at the Playhouse.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona plays at the Everyman until Saturday 29th October.

Cast of The Two Gentlemen of Verona on tour - image (C) Gary Calton

This review was originally written for Good News Liverpool

The Rivals - Liverpool Playhouse - 06/10/2016

Director Dominic Hill gave us a good view of the backstage workings of the Playhouse in his 2013 Crime and Punishment, and he begins this new staging of Sheridan’s 18th century comedy with a similarly bare stage, soon to be filled with the various elements of Tom Rogers' evocative set.

Everything about this production, including the chairs, is like a series of picture frames; an art gallery being constantly hung and re-hung with vividly lit tableaux. The performers in lavish costumes are directed in a way that turns every scene into a stunning visual image. Amidst the period garb and enormous wigs, Hill throws in some witty anachronisms with the props to remind us that the misogyny of the story is not as dated as it might at first appear.

But the show is not solely a treat for the eyes. As Mrs Malaprop might say, the text and its delivery are the very pineapple of perfection. The entire cast have enormous fun with their lines, tripping out the sharp wit of this comedy of manners at a rattling pace.

Desmond Barritt as Sir Anthony Absolute tries to persuade his son Jack (Rhys Rusbatch) that he must marry a wealthy young lady chosen for him in order to lay hands on her fortune, whether he cares for her or not. “If you have an estate you must take it with the livestock as it stands” he is told. What neither know is that the chosen woman is the girl Jack is secretly wooing, Lydia Languish, disguising himself as a poor serviceman, Ensign Beverley. When this becomes clear he goes on to regain his father’s favour by pretending that he will consent to marry purely to appease him.

The plot is filled with all the deceptions and intrigues of the genre, and the writing is generous with opportunities for all Sheridan’s characters to revel in its telling.

The entire ensemble produce splendid performances, but highlights must be Julie Legrand’s wilting Mrs Malaprop, with all her vocal confusions, and Desmond Barritt’s pompous Sir Anthony. The real show-stealer is Lucy Briggs-Owen, whose Lydia Languish lilts and swoons about the stage, arms flapping and hands fluttering, like something out of Ab-Fab or Made in Chelsea, with the vocal characterisation to match.

Atmosphere is completed with splendidly done lighting from Howard Hudson and subtle music played on a harpsichord placed to the rear of the stage.

Despite its vintage text and period setting, The Rivals feels bang up to date in Hill’s light handed, fleet of foot presentation, which is full of laughter but still packs a punchy message.

The Rivals runs at the Playhouse until Saturday 29th October.

Lucy Briggs-Owen in The Rivals - Photo (C) Mark Douet

This review was originally written for Good News Liverpool