Pride and Prejudice – Jermyn Street Theatre, London

Adaptors: Abigail Pickard Price with Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches

Director: Abigail Pickard Price

It is a truth universally acknowledged… ok, you know the rest, and that is the main problem for anyone adapting Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for the stage, the story and much of its dialogue is so well known that much of the audience will be ahead of the story, sapping it of drama, jeopardy and any sense of surprise. Abigail Pickard Price’s two-hour show arriving at Jermyn Street Theatre overcomes this with an experimental approach using just three actors to play 17 of Austen’s creations and leaning into the broader social comedy of the novel, where the fun of rapidly changing hats and voices livens up the overly familiar plot.

Narrated by Elizabeth Bennett who substitutes the authorial voice before slipping into acted scenes, Pickard Price has distilled Austen’s novel to its key moments, the fateful encounters, turning points and revered lines that chart the slow-burn romance between its polar opposite central characters determined to loathe one another. And while audience members can debate the merits of some of those choices – only one scene with Wickham yet so much Mrs Bennett – this version of Pride and Prejudice is both a faithful and serviceable abridgement that will satisfy Austen fans.

And the Pickard Price with co-writers Sarah Gobran and Matt Pinches have understood that theatre makes slightly different demands than a novel, needing to show rather than tell, limiting Lizzie Bennett’s narration to leaps in time and location while jettisoning superfluous characters like the Hursts, the Lucases (Charlotte excepted) and the wider Rosings Park entourage – all wonderful context in a good read but momentum sapping digressions when there are respectable men of good fortune to meet and Bennett sisters to marry off while still leaving space for an interval drink.

Making this a largely comic adaptation means some of the strongest moments come from the mid-scene switching between individuals using costume accents to signify and sometimes share performance of the same character. Many of these are represented merely as light caricatures but are a deliberate part of Pickard Price’s overall production design, so much of the humour comes from the actors juggling roles, as they do to great effect at the Pemberly dinner party or creating anticipation by helping each other to dress for their next major encounter.

The three performers, Gobran, Luke Barton and April Hughes work collaboratively to bring the story to life resulting in some memorable interpretations, with Barton’s Lydia and Mr Collins particularly enjoyable. Hughes’ Lizzie tends to veer between seductive or shouting which rather overshadows the famous wit and across the production, the effectiveness of the presentation style eventually starts to wane as the familiar conclusion draws.

The show also struggles to maintain its energy in the romantic scenes, finding the sincerity of Mr Darcy in particular hard to reconcile with the madcap nature of the Bennett household, and it noticeably sags in the moments that are pure Austen. At these points the production seems unsure of itself, torn between the larky fun that dominates the presentation while trying still to offer a purer version of Austen’s original tale as well, a tension that remains unresolved.

Runs until 7 September 2024