Writer: Jane Austen
Adaptor: Kate Hamill
Director: Lotte Wakeham
As every literary festival, and almost every cultural outlet celebrates 250 years since the birth of Jane Austen, the national treasure that is Pride and Prejudice is given a spirited re-boot by Theatre by the Lake, Keswick. Not alone of course, but in collaboration with Bolton Octagon, Hull Truck, Theatre Clwyd, and Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. A quartet of northern heavyweights taking on the Hampshire heroine of 19th Century romantic fiction.
These days it is hard not to associate Jane Austen’s mannered social comedies with their modern-day cinema equivalents, courtesy of Richard Curtis, or the numerous trans-Atlantic updates on Miss Austen’s works which have secured fortunes for Hollywood executives. But at the heart of all Austen’s novels is a very provincial, English, rural, perspective on a class system which excluded anyone without land or wealth, and especially women. Austen experienced this at first hand, after her father’s death, and its influence pervades the novel and this play, especially in this treatment by Kate Hamill.
The Bennet family are victims of the patrimonial inheritance rules of their day: with no male heir, the family home and fortune is destined to their cousin, Mr. Collins, an obsequious clergyman. Only if the five (or here four) Bennet daughters can find rich husbands will they avoid impoverishment and dependence. Not to mention homelessness. Their different characters and their choices of appropriate partners make up the plotline of the drama, with the romantic skirmishes between Elizabeth and D’Arcy anchoring the central love interest. Rosa Hesmondhalgh and James Sheldon keep the dance between them compelling.
Theatre by the Lake show due respect to the time signature of the novel, and costumes, decor and manners reference the conventions of the period, even down to Charlotte Bingley’s fan flirtatiousness. But the sound design offered by Andy Graham undercuts the polite social interaction with modern raunchiness, demurely rendered by a string quartet. Think Bridgerton. The soundtrack includes Beyonce, the Human League, the LA’s, Blur and Elton John. This enhances the exaggerated and farcical treatment of the characters drawn so meticulously and with such restraint by Austen. They can stand it. As they can withstand almost every other mistreatment.
Played as caricature and farce, this romp is deliciously funny. The more ridiculous characters become even more ridiculous; the more sober-sided characters simply add contrast. Joanna Holden as Mrs. Bennet takes histrionics to a new level, while Dyfrig Morris, as her saturnine husband, quietly ignores the hysterics. Jessica Ellis doubles up as ladette daughter Lydia, emptying the punch ball at parties, and the overbearing snob Lady Catherine, playing both extremes with due relish. Similarly, Ben Fensome makes Wickham a roguish charmer, but turns Mr Collins into the creepiest cleric to ever don a cassock.
The set is simple and subtle. A few basic pieces of furniture and a virginal keyboard are crowned with an over-sized white wedding ring mounted in the rafters. Slick scene shifts and crisp lighting changes maintain the momentum. Costume changes, often on stage, indicate shifts in location or social setting. There is not a superfluous moment.
After 250 years, the love for Jane Austen’s characters, and her subtlety of expression, are undiminished. That we also feel that they can be lampooned and satirised, without losing affection for the originals, testifies to their enduring qualities. Is it even possible to play D’Arcy without a wet shirt now?
Ultimately, this is theatre, and not a book. Theatre by the Lake and their collaborators deliver a joyous stage production, celebrating the best of the original, while being audacious in their approach to a living work of theatre, and fierce in their probing of the injustices of which Miss Austen herself was so aware.
Plays at Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, until 6th September, then at Hull Truck and Theatre Clwyd until 25th October 2025.
