REVIEW: Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich

Steve Sutherland reviews Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich (Or The Beau Defeated), RSC, Swan Theatre, until 14th June

These hallowed walls have lately born witness to the rantings and ravings of many a renowned heroine and fierce harridan. Cleopatra has expounded lush and exotic. The Duchess Of Malfi has writhed and hollered in blood. And right as we speak, on stage next door, Lady Macbeth is busy plotting obscenely.

But, none, I’ll warrant, nay, not one of these fierce and infamous ladies can hold an electric candelabra to the ridiculously fantastic creature that parades herself before us here. Meet, if you dare, Mrs Rich. Played brashly, as if she were born to it, by Sophie Stanton, the magnificently monstrous Mrs Rich is somewhat recently widowed, extravagantly bouffant-ed, stinking rich and embarrassingly ambitious to elevate her social standing. Equally foolish and fabulous, part burlesque, part pantomime dame, she is saucy, sassy and a universe away from classy — which, sadly for her and to our great fortune, is all she craves to be.

And that’s pretty much it. The plot in a nutshell, with dupings and double-crossings galore. Subtitled The Beau Defeated, this is a typically daft and seldom, if ever, revived Restoration Comedy written in 1700 or thereabouts by Mary Pix, one of the very few female playwrights begrudgingly granted their footnote in theatrical history. So OK, it’s obscure but cease your worries, in director Jo Davies’ sure hands this is pretty uncomplicated and unashamed farce. And hip hoozah to that!

Luxuriantly staged, coiffered and coutured, Mrs Rich is quite the tonic in these dreary times, our leading (wannabe) Lady’s gloriously vain and knowing grotesquery admirably mirrored by a great supporting cast of delightfully and equally desperate dreamers and schemers. Principal amongst them are the lily-livered fop on-the-make Sir John Roverhead, played with fond vanity by Tam Williams, Sade Shimmin’s grog-quaffing landlady Mrs Fidget, Daisy Badger’s frisky, pure-at-heart Lady Landsworth, and Laura Elsworthy, who reprises her praise-worthy role as the drudge with the heart of gold in the recent and riotous Hypocrite in the guise here of Betty.

The Clerimont brothers are pretty good too, Solomon Israel’s younger sibling sexily self-pitying, Leo Wringer’s rural elder a stomping comedy of muck and spittle. There are lashings of wicked one liners and knowing asides to savour, a perfectly silly song or two, and some sword-play in bloomers, all playfully upstaged by a couple of lovable real life canines.

“All wig, no brains.” It’s some kind of brilliant.