The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary – Southwark Playhouse Borough, London

Writer: John Nicholson

Director: Kirstie Davis

“Has anyone ever read Madame Bovary?” an actor asks the audience at the start of the show. Seeing very few hands go up, the actor responds, “That’s more than I thought”. In that case, what is the point of mocking something when it is acknowledged that very few people will have the foggiest idea about what is being mocked?

“What is the point?” becomes a recurring question in this adaptation of Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 novel, which turns a French tragedy into a French melodrama and then pushes it one stage further into the realms of French farce. Bearing in mind the season, perhaps it is meant to be seen as an adult pantomime, albeit one with a madame instead of a dame and no songs. In style, the show resembles a manic, absurdist Monty Python sketch, stretched out for an almost unbearable two hours (plus interval).

For the benefit of the assumed majority who are unfamiliar with the novel, Emma Bovary is the wife of a doctor in provincial France, bored with her drab life and her dreary husband. She embarks on a journey of serial adultery and extravagance, piling up debts and leading to eventual ruin. We are warned at the beginning of the show that the tragic ending will be cut in order to preserve the feel-good factor, but, as it stands, writer John Nicholson’s adaptation is hardly ideal for a kids’ Christmas show.

It is pointed out that Emma joins the likes of Anna Karenina and Cathy Earnshaw as one of the tragic heroines of 19th-Century literature. However, there is little in Georgia Nicholson’s portrayal of her that draws sympathy for her as a symbol of female oppression. Instead, Nicholson turns her into a ridiculous figure, selfish and petulant. All the other roles are shared between Stephen Cavanagh, Ben Kernow and Darren Seed, leading to frantic entrances and exits and lightning-quick costume changes. The four actors earn ten out of ten for effort, but it feels as if they try too hard to be funny and, eventually, their material defeats them.

When played straight, 19th-Century melodrama can be entertaining, even funny, but playing it for laughs, as here, is simply taking the joke too far. In the season of goodwill to all, it would be too unkind to describe the mayhem of director Kirstie Davis’ production as a “massive tragedy”, better to sum up by returning to asking what is the point?

Runs until 11 January 2025