The Rivals, Arcola Theatre, E8
reviewed for The Times, 23 October 2014
Nicholas Le Prevost (Sir Anthony Absolute) and Gemma Jones (Mrs Malaprop) in The Rivals
Penned by the consummate satirist of his day, Sheridan’s 1775 play The Rivals should be a natural fit for the feisty Arcola Theatre. Dalston’s alternative theatre space has always had a healthy disrespect for the stale and conventional. Now, wheeling out the big guns with Nicholas Le Prevost and Gemma Jones, it proves it can compete with the West End for sheer star wattage. And therein lies our problem. Le Prevost sparkles as the patriarch of the piece, and as our love-farce plays itself out a good time is had by all. But amid the gorgeous costumes, clever set design and easy laughs, we lose much of Sheridan’s social satire.
There is plenty to enjoy. As Jack Absolute, officer and gentleman, Iain Batchelor only grows in appeal as he picks his way through the deepening romantic chaos of the plot. He loves Lydia Languish, an heiress so soppy about novels that she won’t love any man her family accepts, forcing the only-too-eligible Jack to adopt the lowly guise of “Ensign Beverley”. As Absolute Senior, torn between indignant propriety and vicarious thrill at his son’s swashbuckle, Le Prevost enthrals — every moment between father and son is sheer delight.
There’s little sensitivity in Jenny Rainsford’s insipid Lydia, only simple-mindedness verging on the clinical. Where the text offers her substance, Rainsford lets it slip: on discovering Jack’s deceit, she fumes only at his respectability, missing the real hurt of finding “myself the only dupe at last” of a man we’re supposed to believe she loves. Physically, she entirely fails to convince, prancing around the stage with all the Georgian elegance of Ab Fab’s Edina auditioning as an EastEnders barmaid.
As Lydia’s domineering aunt, Jones gives a decent turn, but her famous “malapropisms” often fail to land: there’s no sense of Mrs Malaprop as linguistic poseur, grasping for her best baroque vocabulary. Instead, she’s simply a fool, babbling on in speeches we barely understand. This is the problem of Selina Cadell’s production in a nutshell: Sheridan isn’t a cruel playwright, merely a cynic. There’s no fun mocking simpletons.
It’s left to the ever-watchable Justine Mitchell and a compelling Adam Jackson-Smith to provide the heart of the play, as a pair of modern lovers who almost sabotage a good match through their neurotic self-criticism. There’s soul here — if only Cadwell’s whole production reached this level.
