LONDON ASSURANCE. To 15 January.

Manchester

LONDON ASSURANCE
by Dion Boucicault

Royal Exchange Theatre To 15 January 2005
Mon-Fri 7.30pm Sat 8pm Mat Wed &24 Dec 2.30pm Sat & 27 Dec 4pm no performance 24 (eve), 25 Dec
Runs 2hr 35min One interval

TICKETS: 0161 833 9833
boxoffice@royalexchange.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 15 December

A pleasant evening, if hardly an hilarious one.Before he became the Stephen Spielberg of Victorian Theatre spectacle, with his Shaughraun, his Colleen Bawn and the like, young Irishman Dion Boucicault began his career with this 1841 social comedy, when he was just over 20 years old. Unsurprisingly, it's derivative, with something of the air of She Stoops to Conquer in its town and country contrast (with a setting, mainly, in the country) plus the comic clash of values between urban and rural gentry and old and new generations as young city gents bring their brassneck assurance to quieter country ways.

The language though is early Victorian (echoes of Dickensian youths are in there). And there's a robust plot that delights in broad comic effects, particularly in Lady Gay Spanker (a name denoting a horsy, hearty, hunting type) and her husband who gave her the name and the whip hand, asserting himself only briefly when drunk. This pair enjoy married bliss in their individual ways. Peter Lindford's hesitant Adolphus is finely comic while Race Davies gives Lady Gay a purposeful smile and a brisk, country-air positive attitude to life.

Along with Gerald Harper's Sir Courtly, these are the finest performances. Harper adopts the manner in put-upon comedy characters successfully exploited by the late Michael Bryant in his portrayal of a wronged husband in the National Theatre's 1970s Love for Love. It's a style that needs authority and confidence, avoiding mannerisms and flurries of words for stillness, and the calm, pause-strewn delivery of someone slowly opening up about being downtrodden.

Harper manages it well. And, as his country-house owning friend Harkaway, Jon Cartwright provides strong support. The rest is all solidly, if unexcitingly, acted in Jacob Murray's decent production. But though it purrs along smoothly enough on Louise Ann Wilson's spare and elegant set, the show rarely takes flight. While Jonathan Keeble brings a neat, Uriah Heepish fawning to his greedy wannabe legal-eagle and Andrew Langtree makes something of Dazzle always there though no-one knows why - there's a sense of effort, fatal to comic energy, about several performances, while Murray's production never finds a consistently appropriate gear.

Cool: Murray Melvin
Martin/James/Mr Solomon Isaac: Patrick Driver
Charles Courtly: Charles Aitken
Richard Dazzle: Andrew Langtree
Sir Harcourt Courtly: Gerald Harper
Max Harkaway: Jon Cartwright
Pert: Lorna Lewis
Grace Harkaway: Rae Hendrie
Mark Meddle: Jonathan Keeble
Lady Gay Spanker: Race Davies
Mr Adolphus Spanker: Peter Lindford

Director: Jacob Murray
Designer: Louise Ann Wilson
Lighting: Jason Taylor
Sound: Royal Exchange Sound Dept
Music: Tayo Akinbode

2004-12-22 10:50:40