LONDON ASSURANCE. To 5 July.

Tour.

LONDON ASSURANCE
by Dion Boucicault.

Watermill Theatre Tour to 5 July 2008.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 May at Oxford Playhouse.

Assured comedy from an early Victorian beginner.
Brassneck, effrontery – call it what you will. It was alive in 1841, when a sweeping Regency crescent backed Sir Harcourt Courtly’s residence. Like She Stoops to Conquer, Dion Boucicault’s first play contrasts town manners with traditional country ways. And, like Oliver Goldsmith, Boucicault stocks his rural residence with a lively young woman, Grace Harkaway.

Grace isn’t fazed by the prospect of marrying an old man, even plumply rouged Sir Harcourt. Until she meets his son who (in a reverse She Stoops echo) turns up under another name.

If that doesn’t stretch credulity and provide plot opportunities enough, there’s Mr Dazzle; everybody’s friend, though nobody knows who he is. An expert latcher-on and consummate creator of convincing plausibilities, he lives at others’ expense throughout.

Ken Bradshaw gives him an easy invisibility unless he’s customising his voice for a new situation. Nikolai Foster’s Watermill production has other strong performances, including Mike Burnside’s bluff, hospitable member of the rural gentry, in contrast to Gerard Murphy’s self-approving old beau, still admiring his portly outline in reflecting surfaces. The servant’s quarters are admirably represented by Alan McMahon’s valet, who lives up to his name whatever the exigency.

Clare Corbett is as much a Harkaway as a Grace. There’s a freshness and energy to her manner, that makes it seem she’s taken the neighbouring Lady Gay Spanker (Geraldine McNulty, impressuive) as her role model. Time has distorted the implications of this Lady’s name; commanding in her marriage, where she towers above Christopher Ryan’s happy husband, it’s a fondness for the hunt that characterises her. Both Spankers enter first in hunt attire.

Finally, Boucicault has it both ways. Lady Gay turns out to enjoy loosening her husband’s marital reins, and the action’s frolics simmer down to a closing speech upon gentlemanly good-manners.

Fine morality, but hardly a comic recipe. And, even while finding his dramatist’s feet, Boucicault had a strong theatre sense. Foster’s production only needs less vocal strain in the phrasing of a few performances to be a delight, Philip Witcomb’s colourful set from the diminutive Watermill sitting prettily on the larger Oxford Playhouse space.

Cool: Alan McMahon.
Martin/James/Isaacs: Robert Calvert.
Charles Courtly: Laurence Mitchell.
Richard Dazzle: Ken Bradshaw.
Sir Harcourt Courtly: Gerard Murphy.
Max Harkaway: Mike Burnside.
Pert: Vivien Reid.
Grace Harkaway: Clare Corbett.
Mark Meddle: Nigel Hastings.
Lady Gay Spanker: Geraldine McNulty.

Director: Nikolai Foster.
Designer: Philip Witcomb.
Lighting: Guy Hoare.
Music: Grant Olding.
Dialect coach: Neil Swain.
Assistant tour director: Vivien Reid.

2008-05-23 16:17:36