The Rivals – Orange Tree Theatre, London

Writer: Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Director: Tom Littler      

Can Tom Littler, Artistic Director of Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre, match his stunning Christmas productions of She Stoops to Conquer and Twelfth Night? His dazzling update of Sheridan’s The Rivals is glorious proof that he can.

Eighteenth-century Bath is reimagined in another fashionable incarnation. It’s 1927, and the Jazz Age is in full swing. The original work is brilliantly now accoutred with motorcars, martinis, valets and maids. There’s a distinct whiff of PG Wodehouse as frivolous young men flit between gentlemen’s outfitters, louche clubs and stylish drawing rooms. There’s even an actual bath in Bath – not that of mineral water fame, but an elegant claw-foot job in which Jack Absolute resposes in bubbles until his male servants come to wrap him in towels. ‘Avert your eyes, madam!’ snaps one with Frankie Howerdish relish to an audience member in the front row.

Every aspect of this show sparkles. For a start, there is the fabulous dancing. Not just the iconic Charleston steps but a constant stream of rich variations. Particularly delightful is the ensemble work for the nifty scene changes, which everyone simply dances through. Leah Harris’s movement design is a thing of wonder. Then there’s Tom Attwood’s effervescent compositions and sound design. Joëlle Brabban doubles as both the artful maid Lucy and a compelling nightclub singer.

As to Sheridan’s text: Littler, with associate script editor Rosie Tricks, adroitly strips out some of the more dated language. So it’s all the more surprising to find that so much sparky dialogue is in fact from the original. We may remember Mrs Malaprop describing her niece as ‘headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile’. But who knew that Anthony Absolute’s insistence that his son marry an heiress he’s never met, with the words ‘If you have the estate, you must take it with the live stock on it’ is original Sheridan too? Eighteenth-century witticisms shine anew in this freshest of settings. Then there are the cheeky updates. When the over-anxious Faulkland (a great performance by James Sheldon) disguises himself in a hooded black cape to meet his Julia in Bath Abbey, her cry of ‘Traitor!’ almost brings the house down.

Littler directs at a great pace, making sure we don’t miss a single plot twist. With its mistaken identities, cunning servants and letters gone astray, there are echoes of both Shakespearean comedy and comic masterpieces yet to be written. Does Lydia’s notion of marrying a man without money to live in romantic poverty, for instance, suggest she is a forerunner of Oscar Wilde’s Gwendolen, who will only marry a man of the name of Ernest? Wilde’s Jack leads a double life – Ernest in town and Jack in the country – but Sheridan got there first, with his well-heeled Jack masquerading as lowly Sergeant Beverley.

Patricia Hodge and Robert Bathurst bring glitter to the cast, Hodge giving Mrs Malaprop perfect crispness, and Bathurst is masterly as the patrician Absolute père. Kit Young is magnificent as Jack, both in his comic timing and his sensational dancing. Zoe Brough and Boadicea Ricketts are perfectly cast as the young beauties, Lydia and Julia, and Dylan Corbett-Bader is hilarious as the hapless Bob Acres. Colum Gormley successfully transforms Lucius O’Trigger into a swaggering American.

Of the minor characters, the sheer number of waiters, servants and bar-tenders gives the impression of a huge cast, but in fact most are played by a sterling trio: Pete Ashmore, Jim Findley and Robert Maskell. Maskell deserves special mention, giving comic life to the most minor of characters.

It’s a glorious show that will send you out singing into the winter night.

Runs until 24 January 2026