Rating: 5/5
Verdict: Sparklingly witty 1841 ensemble comedy
There are deafening echoes of Oscar Wilde in this play, the latest offering in the terrific NT Live * series. It's a puzzle, since London Assurance was first performed in 1841, 13 years before Wilde was born, so we can't accuse its (also Irish) writer, Dion Boucicault, of plagiarism. But a final scene that contains the exchange "Who the deuce are you?"; "I have not the remotest idea" is irresistibly reminiscent of the identity revelation at the end of The Importance of Being Earnest and the production plays up the link, too, with "A hamper!" being uttered just like the immortal "A handbag!"
Time has been kinder to Wilde of course, not just because he was a better self-publicist than Boucicault but because his genius was both more prodigious and more prolific. London Assurance is not is a masterpiece, but that's all the more reason to see it: we may follow the cast's lead in approaching it, not with reverence, but determined to have a whale of a time.
A five-acter that plays with a 10-minute interval, London Assurance focuses on the outrageously self-regarding Sir Harcourt Courtly (Simon Russell Beale), a Belgravia fop who is lured to the hostile jungles of Gloucestershire by the promise of marriage to Grace (Michelle Terry), almost young enough to be his grand-daughter.
Grace's father, the ruddy, bluff squire Max Harkaway (Mark Addy), has hidden financial motives for promoting the union. But things get complicated when the eyes of both betrothed alight on other attractions.
For Courtly, the distraction is Grace's cousin, the horsey Lady Gay Spanker (Fiona Shaw), as deliciously hilarious a comic performance as you're likely to see this year. She and Beale lead a sublime ensemble - with the possible exception of a slightly shrill Terry - in a finely honed piece of pre-Victorian camp, full of furious exits and entrances and uproariously delightful improbabilities. A hoot from start to finish.
* NT Live is a project of London's National Theatre in which productions are filmed and broadcast in real time to cinemas on both sides of the Atlantic. We get them here on hard drive a few weeks later. It's a commercially risky undertaking for the distributors, who deserve the encouragement of all the custom they can get.
Cast: Simon Russell Beale, Fiona Shaw, Michelle Terry, Paul Ready, Matt Cross, Mark Addy
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Running time: 180 mins
Rating: Exempt
