The Alchemist

Synopsis

While the master of the house is out of town to escape the plague, his house-keeper sets up with 'a cheater and his punk' as the city's premiere conman. A full range of alternative services is offered to the citizens who beat a furtive path to their door - anything from the secret of eternal youth to that recipe of recipes, which will turn a tin can into bankable gold. Masters of the ludicrous disguise, in one amazing day they aim to prove 'who shall shark the best.' Their frantic fraudulence reaches boiling point when the gang receives some alarming news. Jonson's satire mercilessly burns away the dross, exposing a society whose obsessions make it vulnerable to any well worked scam - as long as it promises the instant jackpot in business, gambling, quarrelling or sexual conquest.

Our Review:

15 September 2006

Keeping the name and reputation of Ben Jonson alive is sometimes hard work, even in his best plays. The RSC has shown only sporadic interest in fulfilling their obligation to Shakespeare’s only rival (oh, all right, Webster and Middleton must rate a good shout, but old Ben speaks so directly to us, even now, don’t you think?), and not always successfully, so it may be the National’s job to fill the breach.

This they do, to a certain extent, in Nicholas Hytner’s modern dress revival of The Alchemist in the Olivier, part of the admirable Travelex £10 ticket season. But the fabulous scam of the con artist, pimp and prostitute turning an absentee employer’s house into an emporium of fantastical rip-offs lacks the crucial, killing Jonsonian ingredient of unbridled glee. I loved the evening but I had the odd sensation of being on my own, rubbing up against my lamp of enthusiasm for Jonson.

There is something odd, for a start, with Mark Thompson’s desi...

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Latest User Review

195.93.21.72) - 28 November 2006:

what a shame: three of the finest actors around (russell beale, jennings and richardson) wasted on this tosh. half an hour too long, rushed to the point where it was barely understandable, i can see why two reviewers left at half time. yawwwnnn...

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