The Country Wife
From October 2007
A revival of The Country Wife by William Wycherley is currently showing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London. I have not seen it so whether the play is any good or not I am in no position to judge. I have however seen this advert for it in The Guardian, and at this point regular readers may notice a theme emerging.
William Wycherley was an English dramatist born in 1640. His life story is the usual run-of-the-mill 17th century playwright stuff: early conversion to Catholicism while in France, a few years in the navy, a frequent visitor to "bawdy houses", a secret marriage to a Countess he met in a bookshop, 7 years in choky and, at some point, a conversion back to the Church of England. He was famed for his comedies of which The Country Wife is one and he apparently coined the expression "nincompoop". If that doesn't have them rolling in the aisles at the Royal Haymarket then nothing will.
But returning to the advert in The Guardian you have to wonder: who is all this aimed at? Statements such as SHOWS DON'T COME MORE DISGRACEFULLY PLEASURABLE THAN THIS and FILTH AT ITS FINEST suggest that the entertainment provided will be little more than that available in a lap dancing bar. One suspects that a regular visitor to Spearmint Rhino looking for a change of scenery might leave the Royal Haymarket a little disappointed. Equally I can see hardcore Wycherley fans (the sort who guffaw, no doubt into their beards, at the mere mention of "nincompoop") being put off by this advert. It seems to be the way of things in the world of theatre these days. When, for example, did you last see a straight version of any of Shakespeare's plays? Last time I saw Othello the director had taken it upon himself to re-work it as a 1st World War drama, not that he'd bothered to actually change anything other than dress the cast in shoddy looking military uniforms & put a jeep on the stage.
The rest of the advert is just pure unadulterated (but predictable) theatre critic guff. Needless to say David Haig is ONE OF THE GREATEST COMIC ACTORS OF HIS GENERATION and Toby Stephens is A TOUR DE FORCE. Overall the play is SHOCKINGLY GOOD (which suggests that the Sunday Times critic had particularly low expectations) and although I do not doubt that Patricia Hodge is SIMPLY DELICIOUS it is hard to believe that she could ever trump her performance of almost 30 years ago as Phyllida Erskine-Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey. The only real surprise in any of this is that the play is not a TRIUMPH.