Ruth Leon’s Pocket Theatre Review

Pride and Prejudice – Jermyn Street Theatre

It’s been quite a week for women in bonnets. First, all three Brontes, then, inevitably, Jane Austin. At Jermyn Street there’s an entertaining adaptation of Miz Jane’s most famous novel with only three actors, in from the Guildford Shakespeare Company.

Adapted and directed by Abigail Pickard Price, who has done a smashing job, it stars April Hughes as a winsome and versatile Lizzie Bennet (and many others), Sarah Gobran, a producer and co-founder of the Guildford Shakespeare Company with many voices and accents as Mrs Bennet (and many others), and a truly exciting discovery of Luke Barton as Mr Bennet and all the male characters and at least two of the other Bennet daughters including a hilarious turn as Kitty, the flighty one who runs off with a soldier.  It seems the Victorians had a lot of daughters.

The director and her actors have had to work out how to manage lightening-quick changes from character to character with only three bodies on Jermyn Street’s postage-stamp size playing area and, once you get used to the constant exchanging of coats, hats and props, the choreography itself becomes an endearing part of the play’s appeal.

Everybody knows the story of Pride and Prejudice so part of the fun is waiting to find out how the actors are gong to handle those favourite moments from the book. Ingeniously, as it turns out.

Jane Austin’s own serious intentions are not ignored here although they’re nearly subsumed by having to don the right hat at the right juncture without interrupting the action. Her recurring preoccupation, that the only option for a woman of her time was to make a good marriage, still resonates strongly.

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