The Rivals at the Orange Tree Theatre and on tour – review

For the past three Christmas seasons at the Orange Tree Theatre, Tom Littler has presented a classic comedy with a Jazz Age makeover. In 2023, it was Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer and in 2024, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night took to the stage. Now it’s the turn of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1775 gilded comedy of manners, The Rivals.

Littler and associate script editor Rosie Tricks have liberally updated the script with 1920s references. Balls become nightclubs and coachmen are chauffeurs, and, rather jarringly, there’s also a nod to the present day with The Traitors. PG Wodehouse fans will likely have a field day spotting in-jokes, though, for those who aren’t absorbed in his works (like myself), the only direct allusion is likely to be the way in which Captain Jack Absolute’s valet Fag is renamed Frederick Arnold Gieves (pronounced Jeeves – just a little on-the-nose).

The flapper-era setting looks appealing, with all the plus fours, beaded dresses and feathered headdresses (set and costume design by Nell Irish). And Joëlle Brabban (as Lucy the maid) provides lively musical interludes that turn the in-the-round auditorium into an exclusive nightclub.

The great comic actress Patricia Hodge (who is styled to look like Barbara Cartland in her hot pink outfits and curly wig) delivers plenty of superciliousness with underlying warmth as Mrs Malaprop. However, it’s probably sacrilegious to suggest that Mrs M is a rather one-note, comic creation, being limited to mangling language (“Don’t cast nasturtiums” and “Men are all Bavarians” are among the best lines) and not given the opportunity to do much else. Robert Bathurst is solid as the patriarchal Sir Anthony Absolute, who embodies the stuffy old guard.

Kit Young, who makes his entrance in a bubble bath, is a highlight as the quick-witted and dashing Captain Jack Absolute, who is pretending to be a humble sergeant in order to make himself more appealing to heiress Lydia Languish (Zoe Brough), with her romantic ideas about poverty (and who receives visitors in particularly fetching silk pyjamas). Together, they make an appealing pair of bright young things.

It’s all very artificial and it isn’t easy to feel overly invested in most of the relationships. James Sheldon’s “silly ass” “Faulty” Faulkland, who is engaged to Lydia’s more down-to-earth friend Julia (Boadicea Ricketts), gets some laughs from his excitable outbursts. Irish American millionaire Lucius O’Trigger (Colm Gormley) and the yokel-ish Bob Acres (Dylan Corbett-Bader) feel awkwardly shoehorned into the story (probably a misstep of the play itself rather than the production). The flashing lights and jazzy beats that mark the scene changes also get repetitive after a while.

As always, comedy is subjective. This revival of a canonical classic makes for a pleasant diversion, though it does, to this reviewer at least, feel like one that’s more likely to elicit polite laughter than anything that arises wholeheartedly from the belly.