The first night performance of Ruddigore at the O’Reilly went off without a hitch as the cast sang and skipped their way to an appropriately ridiculous finale.

Thomas Wade and Alexandra Coghlan (as Sir Ruthven/Robin and Rose) led a highly talented cast, complimented by a select but polished orchestra, through the riotous two act romp to the obvious enjoyment of the audience. The singing was, of course, the highlight of the production – Wade and Coghlan were particularly strong, but Katherine Fairnhurst (as Dame Hannah) also gave a stellar vocal performance.

Acting highlights included Stephen McCarthy’s Sir Despard, with Michael Peyton Jones also performing well as the brothers’ deceased ancestor Sir Roderic. The most humorous moment of the evening had to be the scene between Sir Despard and Mad Margaret (Kate O’Connor); the pair’s comic timing was commendable.

With such a bare stage to work with the efforts of costume designer Rachel McGoff added a lot to the production. The colourful clothes added interest and intensified the humour – particularly the ingeniously-constructed plastic bag dress worn by O’Connor in her first scene. The decision to keep the ancestral statues onstage throughout Act Two was an effective design tool and the stillness of the actors, praiseworthy.

While Gilbert and Sullivan productions may not be to every theatregoer’s taste, this production shows how do it well and its entertainment value is not limited to those who are particularly interested in musicals. Director Rory Pelsue has managed to pull off a production which is musically accomplished, yet with mass appeal, and it is well worth watching in the next few days.

Four stars

Ruddigore is at the Keble O’Reilly until Saturday

How nice it is to be in Oxford. How nice to walk into Christchurch and watch some nice Oxford men act out a nice croquet game for their nice Oxford play. Very nice.

At the suggestion that The Invention of Love, with its portrayal of 19th Century Oxford, might still be highly relevant to our modern day experiences, I found myself sceptical. This isn’t the Oxford I know. It’s not really the Oxford I want to know. While at one time mallet-swinging dons lamented the invasion of their spire-filled paradise by the train from Birmingham, we might now feel ashamed to be so far removed from ‘the real world’. But the play is not simply a look back to an Oxford long lost, and any attempt to reduce this production to misty-eyed nostalgia will soon be revealed as blind. Fortunately, there’s much more for the modern Oxford student than mere historical-tourism.

The play presents the dying moments of scholar and poet, A.E. Housman, as he dreams of his days as a promising undergraduate, his growing love for his friend Moses Jackson and his ultimate descent into the lonely disappointments of adulthood. Importantly, this is the story of ‘Housman in the days of Wilde.’ Although only making a brief cameo, the Irish wit’s presence is constant, highlighting the life the protagonist dared not lead.

Although perhaps lesser known, this is by no means of any less quality than what we may expect from a Stoppard script, sparkling as it is with sophisticated wordplay and profound sentiment. The discussions of aestheticism and the re-criminalisation of homosexuality are explored with more insight and depth than most academic texts, and the humour is at its best. The script has previously come under fire for its constant use of classical references, but while it does titillate the Classicists to an annoying degree, we laymen should not get too bored as smooth scene changes keep the eyelids open.

The production’s modern take on an Ancient Greek chorus, at first dons then MPs, does well to capture the comedy of the dialogue and looks set to earn a good few laughs. So too does Philip Bartlett as Housman’s flamboyant friend, Pollard. Playing the young poet is the relatively baby-faced Joe Robertson, who already – in the short scenes of the preview – has an endearing innocence that shows great potential for the more emotionally weighted scenes with Jonathon Webb’s Jackson.

The team behind the production have clearly put a great deal of thought and hard work into the production – even obtaining the blessing of Sir Tom himself. Director Roger Granville appears in his element as he energetically relays the plans for the staging, and he clearly has a fine understanding of the spectacle that the play, and the venue, requires.

As I’m told of the many ways in which technical effects will be relied upon throughout the play, I begin to see why this is supposedly The Most Expensive Student Play Ever. The script asks a lot – two moving boats, to be precise – but it also leaves much open to creativity. Rowan Fuggle’s design looks stunning, focussing on the dream-like quality of the action with a touch of Wildean extravagance; I only hope it translates successfully on to the grand scale.

In fact, it is this movement from cramped rehearsal room to big stage which makes it so difficult at this point to determine the merit of this production, but the team’s plans suggest this could be one of the shows of the year. All that might deprive them of a perfect rating is the risk of their ambition. There’s a lot of room for best laid plans to go slightly awry – whether it be in the success of the special effects, or the task facing the actors. Still, when Granville talks through the touching final moments of the play, I really hope they pull it off.

The main selling point of this production (and it will sell) is the city of Oxford itself. Who of us – we who have been accepted into this bubble – wouldn’t love to spend the evening watching the old Oxford life on stage? Yet this is not really what most of us will take away from the play. I wonder if we might be excused for putting ourselves in the dying Housman’s place, and asking if it’s these ‘heady’ days we would dream of, if there’ll be an inventory of regrets never satisfied, and if there’s some Wilde of our own out living the life we should.

And we’ll probably all decide how nice it is to be here.

Five Stars

The Invention of Love is on at the Oxford Playhouse, 5th week, Wednesday-Saturday.

Director Chris Jones takes on a daunting task with Crave. Sarah Kane’s penultimate play takes place in one act with characters neither explicitly connected nor distinct from each other. To those unfamiliar with Sarah Kane, her brief career and untimely suicide left behind some of the most controversial pieces of theatre of the time. Crave came as Kane’s first non-violent piece of theatre, written with little in the way of stage direction or setting; characters become as unspecific as possible, each with only a letter to denote them.

In the unlikely setting of St Hugh’s newly refurbished bar, low ceilings and dim lighting are enclosed by large pillars and small windows; the small table lamps dotted around the set creating a striking up-lighting effect on the actors’ faces, as jagged shadows exaggerate the sorrow on their faces. The intimacy of the space naturally draws the audience in, and eye contact afforded by the actors with the audience further removes any sense of the fourth wall. These characters are not explicitly connected and their strong use of the middle distance in speech retains the sense that, even when they talk to each other, they remain their own islands of sorrow.

There is sometimes an unfortunate lack of tightness in the script, particularly given that this play demands much well directed bouncing of words and phrases from one character to another. Such aspects of the play that require strong, well-rehearsed conviction, such as the compelling refrain, “Why?”, “What?”, “Why What?”, “What?”, sometimes lack potency. M’s (Olivia Madin) indignant character is well portrayed, however, throwing sardonic glances which belie her situation, exploding in the occasional fit of indignant rage; a welcome contrast to C’s (Rosie Wells) hand-wringing desolation.

Three Stars

Crave is on at St. Hugh’s College Bar, 5th Week, 7.30pm

With impressive performances all round, particularly from Margherita Philipp and Emile Halpin, Carol Churchill’s Vinegar Tom is a bold and powerful feminist perspective of the sixteenth century witch trials in Britain. As hysteria takes hold the women of a small village are, one after another, accused, tortured and executed at the hands of a male witch finder (Halpin) and his all too gleeful assistant. From the outset Churchill’s message, under the direction of Sarah McCready, is made emphatically clear as ‘Man’ (Halpin, in the most stirring of his three roles) declares “I am the Devil” and, after satisfying his own desires leaves a desperate Alice (Philipp), scrambling for his name.

Certainly not for the faint of heart, the production might prove over-confrontational for some. The ‘examinations’ of the witch finder, conducted on bloodstained sheets are frequent, brutal and make for purposefully uncomfortable viewing. The use of pointed sticks as the instruments of this torture serving as an all too blatant reminder of Churchill’s agenda..

George Feld and Aidan Clifford, as ‘Sprenger and Kramer’, authors of The Malleus Maleficarum witch-hunter’s manual, have enjoyable chemistry, and their poetic diatribe provides a little light relief alongside the traumas of the main play. Although, even this is short-lived, as their tone soon sours and they are interrupted by the modern-dress chorus. The chorus themselves effectively dominant the stage during their scenes, working successfully as a unit. 

The male dominant society of the 1500s is made abundantly clear, although I fear the original 1970s preformance, which used choral settings to translate this impression, was perhaps more convincing, and indeed more necessary.

So long as the audience is prepared for what the play is about, and for the message it delivers with every line, they will undoubtedly be impressed. The staging is simple but effective, the direction smart and mature, and the acting is largely striking. I would suggest that a visit be carefully considered, and may not appeal to many. Go to be provoked rather than entertained, for this is a performance of extremes.

Four stars

Vinegar Tom is at the Wadham Moser, 16-20 February, 7.30pm

The Philanthropist opens with a familiar scene. A jittery John (Tom Moyser) is interrogated by his two straight-faced tutors, with a startling conclusion that makes those apocryphal horror stories of the infamous ‘Oxbridge interview’ sound like child’s play. Indeed, there is something playfully close to home about this satirical portrayal of the insular academic life of the pretentious and decadent literary set.

Perhaps this is what turns a script that could potentially have been arcane and difficult – Christopher Hampton’s play being both a self-professed ‘bourgeois comedy’ and a response to a seventeenth century comedy of manners – into a thoroughly enjoyable and accessible play, though no doubt the very quality of performances, writing and comedy also have their roles to play.

If it all sounds a bit serious, it isn’t. This is a play that balances cruel wit and black humour, with prodding satire and situation comedy. Jonathon Swinard is outstanding as the fumbling, socially inept professor of Philology Philip, while Dave Ralf is brilliantly detestable as the gaudy author Braham, though it could be said that his performance is more convincing during his high-flown rambles than his angry outbursts. Sam Buchdahl’s subtle portrayal of the despondent Don is also a highlight. It has to be said though that this is a play that thrives on the dynamics of the group – the banter is fast, fluid and punning – and no one seems to let the side down. Perhaps the staging could have been more imaginative, though the energy of the cast does compensate for this.

Overall, this is a very mature, funny and professional adaptation of a very suave play. Whether your interests lie in sex, scandal or social commentary, his play has it all and is well worth going to see.

Four Stars

The Philanthropist is on at the Burton Taylor Studio, 5th Week, Tuesday to Saturday, 7.30pm

The Aphorist, is a student written and performed play revolving around the deluded, miserable Harry (Matthew Monaghan), his suffocatingly pretentious friend Rudolph (Felix Legge) and Rudolph’s adoring girlfriend Cynthia (Agnes Meath Baker). The play charts the gradual emergence of the repressed feelings of Harry towards both Rudolph and Cynthia through Rudolph’s efforts to bring Harry along to one of his ‘shows’.

The character of Harry, at first glance, seems to invite a somewhat pitying empathy. Both the author and the actor do a fine job in creating a character that oozes resentment and a feeling of bitter under-appreciation. Yet there was a slightly disappointing lack of development. As a result, some of the dialogues later in the play were held back by the somewhat one dimensional nature of both the expression and the character. There are, after all, only so many ways of saying a resentful ‘no’.

While this problem did also feature in the portrayal of the other characters, this is one of the inevitable side effects of roles that are, in many ways, caricatures, and did not matter so much in the less pivotal roles. Other than this, however, the acting was rather good, especially the efforts of Felix Legge as Rudolph.

There may well be flaws in this production, but it is important to bear in mind that this play is the first attempt of a previously untried student writer. There is, after all, much to be commended; the dialogue, for the most part was well crafted, and largely devoid of the clumsy or incongruous lines that one might expect to crop up in a production of this nature. In addition to this, parts of the play are genuinely funny. It may not have had me choking on the floor, and the tendency to pander to the student predilection for incongruous swearing or absurd melodrama may not have been entirely absent, but there is a healthy dose of more subtle and well thought out comedy which is rather rare.

All in all, there is certainly plenty of potential on display here, both in the acting and in the writing, and I look forward to seeing strengths built upon by all members of the production in the final performance.

Three stars

The Aphorist is at the Burton Taylor Studio, 5th week, Tues-Sat, 9.30pm