Plied and Prejudice
by Matthew Semple
director Dash Kruck
with Emma Andreatta, Brigitte Freeme, Andrew Macmillan, Monique Sallé, Tim Walker
hosts Alexia Brinsley, Zak Enayat
musicians Olivia Warren, Antonia Richards
set/costumes Penny Challen • movement Dan Venz
sound Aidan Jones • lighting Joe Willcox
The Vaults, London • 13.Mar-18.Jul.25 ★★★
After a hit run in Australia, this raucous adaptation of Jane Austen's classic novel lands in London, taking up residency in The Vaults theatre space under Waterloo station to celebrate 250th anniversary of the author's birth. As the title suggests, this version is loose and irreverent, and it playfully incorporates elements from both the iconic 1995 BBC adaptation (including Colin Firth's wet t-shirt moment) and
Bridgerton. Meanwhile, the venue brings its own opportunities and challenges.
Using a traverse stage, as actors charge up and down a catwalk between two halves of the audience, this is a hugely physical show with five Australian performers playing more than 20 roles that require energetic costume and personality changes. And audience members stand in for a few more. These gifted circus-style performers gleefully exaggerate each character's specific traits, having a lot of fun with outrageous slapstick moments and improvisational gags that keep the audience laughing while also cracking up their fellow cast members. And since there is constant encouragement to order drinks, the atmosphere resembles a chaotic hen night.
The show opens in the bar with a prologue that's fairly incomprehensible, simply because it's so difficult to hear what's being said into the muffled sound system. This problem continues into the much larger performance space, where we can only hear the hilariously witty dialog if it's spoken nearby. So it's frustrating to hear the other end of the room erupt in laughter at a line we couldn't hear. Even so, the buoyant performances carry us through Austen's familiar story, punching each moment with a flurry of sharply pointed gags, goofy asides and inventive mayhem. Along the way, the plot of
Pride and Prejudice plays out with a fresh sense of mischief that gives the underlying themes and emotions a whole new spin.
Amid the flurry of outrageous characterisations, standouts include Andrew Macmillan's astonishingly slimy Mr Collins and Emma Andreatta's amusingly imperious Lady Catherine. Meanwhile, Brigitte Freeme and Tim Walker play out Elizabeth and Darcy's romantic-comedy storyline with charm and snap, with the added challenge that Walker must constantly run off to play Elizabeth's three younger sisters, all at the same time. And Monique Sallé adds an enjoyable blast of sarcasm to her scenes. She and Freeme also have the most trouble keeping a straight face.
The Vaults have been lavishly decorated for this show's four-month run, with murals covering the walls in multiple spaces, matching the colourfully hand-painted style of the costumes. And with a generous dose of ribald humour, this cast is having so much fun that we can't help but enjoy ourselves, even as we strain to hear the jokes and grapple with a series of confusing QR codes to order another drink. Afterwards, the show moves back to the bar for a proper rave afterwards, and we're definitely in the mood for that.
photos by Guy Bell • 4.Apr.25
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