Caste - Finborough

I took Jan Brock's suggestion and saw the Easter Monday matinee, and adored it! "Pride and Prejudice" remixed for maximum laughs, with an unforgettable star turn by Rebecca Collingwood!

Some spoilers follow. . .

There's alot of "Pride and Prejudice" in this story of caste (aka class) separating lovers. The central duo George d’Alroy (Duncan Moore) and Esther Eccles (Isabella Marshall) are exactly like Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet, but the set-up of this play differs in that the Darcy character, Captain Hawtree (Ben Starr) fails to convince his friend out of marrying below his class. Instead, hijinks ensue, as the unexpected newlyweds' family members react to a culture clash.

Most extreme is the reaction of Susan Penhaligon's Marquise de St.Maur (a Lady Catherine de Bourgh clone, if ever I saw one)! Penhaligon's Marquise speaks like she swallowed 16 frogs, and at least two of those frogs sound like they might leap from her mouth every time she opens it. It's a hilarious performance, evidencing massive range by Penhaligon, as the last time I saw her in this venue, in Martine in 2014, she was the soul of lyricism in a sad poetic play.

That this isn't the funniest turn in the show is a tribute to how terrific this production is (Jan Brock measures his praise cautiously)! The funniest turn is indeed by the delightful Rebecca Collingwood, who plays Esther Eccles' little sister, Polly, a frothing fizzball of a Lydia Bennet clone, with one massive difference: she is sharp as a tack! Disregarding class barriers, she swans around, taunting and tormenting the men around her, not with silliness, but with genuine quickness and wit! Collingwood was last seen (by me) in the "Love's Labours Lost/Much Ado" double at the Haymarket, where she was the small pretty one you expected to have lines, but didn't. This time she spurts lines at triplepace, resembling that little girl at school who had all the friends, and bossed them all around, then grew up, and behaved exactly the same. Collingwood's Polly is a human Tardis, in that her small frame contains more bottled energy and effervesence than ten larger ones. She is so amiable, charming, quick and funny that even the grumpiest looking audience members were audibly laughing.

Plot developments were well realised, and apart from a melodramatic slump at the beginning of the second half, this was the most amusing, most delightful play I've seen all year. It's a joke in itself how much funnier this production is than "The Miser," which by comparison, is packing them in!

Gods of theatreland, please give this production a run at Trafalgar 2 so other people can see it. While it's politics are in the rearview of history, like "Pride and Prejudice" itself, this show is pure pleasure.

4 and a half stars