“Has anyone seen my fanny?” No, not Julian Clary in search of his illusive Wonderdog, but the suggestively-named Touchwood (Grant O’Rourke, who could wring a laugh out of a semicolon) at a masquerade ball on the eve of the arranged marriage between the provost’s daughter Letitia Hardy (Angela Hardie) and the dashing Doricourt (Angus Miller) whose indifference bordering on disdain for his fiancé is fuelled by the fact that he finds her pleasant but plain, lacking the va-va-voom of an alluring Parisienne.

Letitia, though, is no such thing. Or rather, her perceived Plain Jane-ness is only part of her personality, along with passion and intelligence, decadence and sophistication, and, yes, at times, bashfulness and trepidation. But she is drawn to her beau (Hannah Cowley’s farce, adapted by director Tony Cownie, was written as a riposte to George Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem) like a moth to a flame. Or, to use a simile more appropriate to the Georgian New Town where the play is set, like a man of the cloth to a lady of the night.

Her titular stratagem being to “turn his indifference into his dislike” by replacing her dull reticence with garish impudence, disguising herself at the masquerade ball and wooing him afresh with witty wordplay, Jacobean singing and courtly dancing which she hopes will “touch his heart” and change his mind. But her plan hits the buffers when he feigns madness in order to wriggle out of what he fears will be a loveless marriage and return to his beloved France.

Plot and counterplot intertwine, involving an array of colourful characters from both the Old and the New Town, who swap partners, clothes and genders with farcical rapidity. Touchwood, with his “face like a sun-dried keech”, has caged himself a battery hen in Lady Frances (Helen Mackay) who is persuaded to ruffle a few feathers by two riotous widows in the shape of Mrs Racket by name racket by nature (Pauline Knowles) and the lascivious Mrs Ogle (Nicola Roy) who describes her previous marriage as ill-fated on the grounds that she was a Sagittarian and he was an “arse”.

The one-liners are so fast and frequent ‒ and, more importantly, on the money ‒ that at times it’s a bit like watching a conveyor belt of prizes whiz by on The Generation Game. The Ronseal-named Courtall (Richard Conlon) is described as having a breath which would knock the buzzards off a shit-wagon. The compliments of the gossip-mongering hack Flutter (John Ramage) are compared to the Old Town: ancient and full of shit. Grant’s scene-stealing turn as Doricourt’s servant Geoffrey is said to have so many plums in his mouth that you would think he had branches growing out of his nether regions! And Steven McNicoll is on equally hilarious form in a variety of cameos, most memorably as an emphysemic doorman who can only muster two words to the breath.

Amid all the tomfoolery, however, are a few serious points which are as relevant to modern audiences as the patriarchal society of the 1780s during which period the play was written. Gender stereotypes are constantly challenged; women are seen and heard; and freedom and power are not the sole preserves of men, who are likened by Mrs Ogle to Persian rugs on account of the fact that all you need to do is lay them properly and you’ll be able to walk all over them for 30 years. Badum tish!

With regard to relationships, for the most part, the play is a solid endorsement of singledom in that only widows and bachelors seem to have all the fun, while those with a ring on their finger are often weighed down by the burden of fidelity. But the “all’s well that ends well” denouement reinforces Tennyson’s poetic maxim “‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all” when a character steps off the travelator of farce to confide to the audience that marriage has some thorns, but celibacy has no roses.

CAST
Richard Conlon Baile/ Courtall
Angela Hardie Letitia
John Kielty Saville
Pauline Knowles Mrs Racket
Steven McNicoll Provost
Helen Mackay Lady Frances
Angus Miller Doricourt
Grant O’Rourke Sir George
John Ramage Flutter
Nicola Roy Mrs Ogle/ Kitty

CREATIVE TEAM
Adapted and Directed by Tony Cownie
Designer Neil Murray
LX Designer Tina MacHugh
Composer John Kielty
Choreographer Kally Lloyd-Jones

Peter Callaghan
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