PRIDE & PREJUDICE (SORT OF)

Theatre Royal Windsor

★★★

“The audience were there for a fun night out and they left happy”

The UK national tour of Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort Of) opened this week at the beautiful Theatre Royal Windsor.

Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort Of) by Isobel McArthur, after Jane Austen, is a fun reinvention of Austen’s caustic tale of love and manners, performed by an all-female cast of five, with double-quick costume changes, playing all the roles. Audiences never seem to tire of the endless TV, films and theatre productions based on Austen’s beloved classic period romance, and devoted fans will quickly recognise a nod to Colin Firth’s Darcy “wet shirt” scene in this adaptation.

The original production of the show started life at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, went to the Fringe, toured, transferred to the West End and won an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2022. This current touring production feels somewhat re-hashed and clunky, knowing too well where the comedy moments are; be it the cast as baaing sheep, presenting a plate of Ferrero Rocher at a ball, grabbing a mike and singing a karaoke song or a quick change – it will get a laugh out of the audience. The biggest laughs of the night were always the casual expletives.…

Comedy is centre stage as we meet the five, playing below stairs maids wearing white Regency style petticoats and yellow marigolds, cleaning the Bennet family’s chamber pots. They rue Austen’s lack of care for the servants in her books, who never get a happy ending. Then with a grab of a microphone they break into song and turn into Mrs Bennet and the five Bennet sisters – well four Bennet sisters, we don’t ever meet Kitty.

McArthur’s adaptation is for modern audiences to enjoy and mostly keeps close to the original story of the Regency period dating game, when women could not inherit wealth and must marry for financial gain. A few new touches include friend Charlotte’s unrequited love for Elizabeth Bennet – but she still ends up with Mr Collins.

The cast of young actresses Emma Rose Creaner, Eleanor Kane, Rhianna McGreevy, Naomi Preston Low and Christine Steel clearly relish all the roles that they play as the tale of the uncouth Mrs Bennet’s race to marry off her five dowry-less daughters before they lose the family home unfolds. We never meet Mr Bennet, who is played by a back facing armchair reading an open newspaper – genius casting! Love is eventually found with Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy but not with the devil may care Wickham.

Slightly disconcerting to the ear, was the fact that all the Bennet family members had different accents, as the cast were playing them with their own natural accent, making the production feel slightly studenty, but perhaps that was the intention. A standout moment was Rhianna McGreevy capturing Darcy’s pride with his sincere love for Elizabeth Bennet, with the audience routing for him to win her hand. And then there was Emma Rose Creaner whose every role was beautifully delivered be it her feisty Irish maid, the accident prone, stuck hand in a Pringle carton Mr Bingley, the dull yet softly spoken Charlotte or the stuck-up vicious Caroline Bingley.

Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s set featuring a curved staircase, was cleverly designed to transform into another stately home or ballroom by simply adding a modern standard lamp or a life size horse (!), and her costumes were uncomplicated yet said everything that needed to be said about each character.

The audience were there for a fun night out and they left happy.