Sheridan’s gloriously witty and acerbic poke at the louche behaviour of London’s elite society in the 18th century, School for Scandal, has been nowhere better presented than here. The sharp comedy played out amongst the sniping lords and ladies with nothing better to do than create gossip and scandal amongst themselves, is as riotously amusing in the 21st century as it must have been in the 18th. Elements of farce abound here and there; a gentleman bundled into closet at the unwelcome arrival of another caller and a lady with no regard to her beautiful hooped silk dress crushed behind a flimsy screen for the same reason.
The play is exquisitely costumed and bewigged, Sir Benjamin Backbite and Crabtree, the principal gossip mongers, adorned in vibrant pink and lilac almost outdoing the ladies in their richly frilled and embroidered finery. The play begins with the widow Lady Sneerwell at her mirror plotting with her servant, the aptly named Snake, to make mischief for the brothers Charles and Joseph Surface, Sir Peter Teazle and his young wife Lady Teazle, together with Sir Peter’s ward Maria for the reason that she herself is in pursuit of Charles. Confused? You will be, but at the same time mightily amused!
Serena Evans is the elegant and wily plotter Lady Sneerwell, and Stuart Ellis the oily Snake. Sir Peter Teazle, the bamboozled old bachelor of some sixty summers, in love with his young wife but appalled by her extravagance is played very well by James Laurenson, getting the audience’s sympathy vote for his age old predicament.
Susannah Fielding as the flighty and flirtatious Lady Teazle is a dream coquette by any man’s standards and she gets some of the wittiest rejoinders in the exchanges with her elderly husband vis-à-vis her shocking extravagance. Mrs Candour, the elderly matron particularly well versed in venomous gossip and the spreading thereof is played by Maggie Steed whose deep and husky delivery adds to the creation of Mrs Candour’s nosy and meddlesome nature.
When the brothers Charles and Joseph’s uncle comes onto the scene in the shape of Sir Oliver Surface, it’s down to that fine actor Ian McNeice to give us a stout avuncular performance which he does in spades. There are good performances too from Edward Bennett and Nigel Harman as the brothers Joseph and Charles respectively; particularly in the knock about farce scene of Lady Teazle’s debacle.
The set makes more for being minimal with clever use of lighting, and there were some very effective pieces of tableau vivant which added to the atmosphere of the play. I thoroughly enjoyed this production in all respects; the audience gave a good response at the end although I felt the excellent cast probably deserved more! A must see I think for visitors to Bath on whose streets the real life counterparts of the play’s characters once schemed and plotted some 300 years ago.
Jacquie Vowles