Yvonne Arnaud, Guildford – until 26th April 2025
Reviewed by Heather Chalkley
4****
Writer April De Angelis captures a unique period in time, giving the audience a dynamic history lesson in the role of women in theatre. Director Michael Oakley has managed to pluck an image from theatre in the 1600’s and present it before you. A clever combination to both entertain and challenge.
We see the precarious position of women in the 1600’s during the Restoration, with few rights and a reinstated philanderer for a king. Theatres had been closed for over a decade. There were no rules as such and so for the first time women were employed as actresses.
Actress and prostitute are synonymous terms, making a living hard. You see a band of pioneering women, carving the way for the actresses of today.
The intrepid Mrs Betterton (Anna Chancellor) teaches her craft to her girls and balances marriage with the thespian theatre manager with love and patience until it finally breaks her. Chancellor is so serious it’s funny. I will never look at a clock face in the same way again!
Zoe Brough captures the nature of Nell Gwyn perfectly, with wide eyes, foul mouth and quick wit that sees her character rise to the top and become one of the kings ‘favourites’. She encapsulates the survival of the fittest.
Katherine Kingsley (Mrs Marshall) gives a full-blooded performance, showing the passion and anger that came with being a voluptuous beauty of the time.
Nicole Sawyerr (Mrs Farley) portrays her character through her physicality, going from hunched puritan daughter, flailing ham actress, strutting kings favourite to prostrated beggar on the street. Sawyerr digs deep to deliver her soliloquy, a bereft mother that had given up her baby.
The narrator character that holds it all together is Doll Common (Tracy Collier). Collier is relatable, believable, giving context to the production and earthiness to her performance. Her description of the theatre in its previous state as a bear pit, is analogous to the life for women on stage in that era.
Together they portray a band of women carving a new pathway into a new profession, discovering all the pitfalls and blind alleys as they go. They explore every avenue, including sexuality, witchery and women’s independence. A stark and sometimes cruel humour emerges that can only be born of people with a love of their art and nothing to lose.