Theatre: Toni O’Rourke plays Emma with gusto, and Hannah Mamalis is hilarious as Harriet. Despite some narrative overreaching, you’ll probably leave happy
I had probably been imagining the sense of trepidation as older audience members arrived to sitting-down music in the form of bangers by Charli XCX and Sophie. There is, however, little in the first act of the, the piece takes place in a nebulous anytime between the regency period and the present day. Catherine Fay’s lovely costumes honour the empire-line cut but also allow in candied new-romantic frills.
O’Rourke understands the brief and executes it with some gusto. Austen was wrong about her lead character . The manipulator is a menace, but her vim and imagination never fail to captivate. The lead here is both helped and hindered by a quirky adaptation that has her in conversation with the audience. This can be amusing when she chides us for not warning her about what is to come.
‘Lots of guests got tattooed’: Jack Reynor and best man Sam Keeley on his wedding, making speeches and remaining friendsHamill and O’Reilly do a decent job of corralling the novel’s large cast of pinballing characters. O’Rourke sonorously intones the name of Emma’s rival, Jane Fairfax – played with comic dignity by Ciara Berkeley – as the cast of the Mean Girls musical chanted that of fearsome Regina George.
After the interval, however, there is a sense of the structure being shaken a little too vigorously. The musical numbers in the ball scene are a blast, but later efforts to justify Emma’s actions are too on the nose. “You don’t remember that from the novel,” the protagonist quips. Well, no. And there are good reasons why those lines weren’t there. At least one revisionary twist is exactly the sort of manoeuvre you’d expect from such a project in 2024.
Toni-O-Rourke Hannah-Mamalis Jane-Austen Claire-O-Reilly Kate-Hamill
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