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BELOW-STAIRS maids never get placed centre stage, even though there can be no romance without clean sheets and that’s the premise of Glasgow-based Blood of the Young’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
It’s a slightly misleading framing of Isobel McArthur’s update of Jane Austen’s novel, which only gives superficial attention to the servants. Yet, directed by Paul Brotherston, it’s nonetheless a delightfully raucous production that swaps the book’s ironic politeness for direct, expletive-rich humour.
In this version Mrs Bennet, who needs to marry her daughters into good money in order to stave off destitution, flakes out drunk on the sofa and frantically sucks on an inhaler, while Elizabeth Bennet (Meghan Tyler) and Fitzwilliam Darcy (McArthur) discuss their first meeting to their respective friends in the toilet cubicles at Meryton Ball.
While staying faithful to Austen’s basic story arc, the six actors play multiple roles to draw on 200 years of pop history. In what at times threatens to become a musical, Elizabeth sings Carly Simon’s
You’re So Vain to Darcy and the overbearing Lady Catherine de Bourgh (Christina Gordon) is the source of a Lady In Red gag.
The jokes come thick and fast, with the cast constantly changing costumes and accents but the central feminist message is never lost.
Mrs Bennet may be unbearable but she hammers home the economic realities of life for women without property. It’s a message that's taken at face value by Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas (Hannah Jarrett-Scott), who weds the insufferable Mr Collins (Felixe Forde).
He typifies the men here, unfailingly shown as stupid, vain or absent — Mr Bennet is represented by an empty chair and a newspaper.
But this is an affectionate production, both to characters and source material, and the cast look like they’re having almost as much fun as the audience.
Tours until April 4.
See here for tickets at the Criterion Theatre in London: seatplan.com/london/pride-and-prejudice-sort-of