THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE by Colman and Garrick. Watermill Theatre, Newbury.
Newbury
THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE
by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick
Watermill Theatre. To 15th September
Runs 2 hrs 40 minutes One interval
TICKETS 01635 46044
Review Timothy Ramsden 15 September 2001
Lively comic invention and a delightful setting make for a fine evening, especially on a fine evening.
It's not what's usually meant by site-specific, but you couldn't do this anywhere else. With its stage edged forward into the round, its galleried intimacy exploited and audiences ushered into the gardens and down to the river to view the action, the Watermill's in full swing.
It's not the first time the site's been used to such advantage. Edward Hall honed quite a few molars here, including his pre-RSC Henry V and the outstanding Rose Rage, which tours this autumn.
Timothy Sheader could be following a similar path. Colman and Garrick play variations on the East meets West theme in their 1766 comedy. East and West London that is, as City merchant Sterling (a rapacious Robert Benfield) seeks to marry his daughter to a West End lord, without offending the family's wealthiest member Mrs Heidelberg (Christina Greatorex, in a splendid show of the blind assurance money gives).But, Clare McCarron's comically ferocious elder daughter having inherited dad's rapacity, Alan Westaway's Sir John Melvil and old Lord Ogleby pursue her sister Fanny, played by Jane Cameron with bewildered alarm. Choice between them is irrelevant as she's secretly married every girl's dreamboat, Richard Glaves' Lovewell. Alas, he's not freighted with cash and that's no use in a world where the dialogue is awash with links between love and money.
It's an energetic show, but the energy's channelled purposefully; not a fan nor a frill is wasted. Even the fake spire designed by Jessica Curtis into a remote garden corner echoes the play's satire on the fashion for such follies.
But it's human folly this show celebrates, and nowhere more than in Sam Dastor's Ogleby, a creaking ruin who thinks himself young, encouraged by his fawning Swiss servant Canton (Nick Caldecott). It's a performance to cherish, in a production to savour.
2001-08-17 15:52:32