‘Jack Absolute Flies Again’ by Richard Bean and Oliver Chris
7 October 2022
Just over ten years ago the National Theatre had a big hit with ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ - Richard Bean’s loose adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s play ‘The Servant of Two Masters’ (reviewed here in October 2011) which was a great star vehicle for James Corden. Now Richard Bean and Oliver Chris (who was in the original cast of ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’) have taken a similar approach to Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s classic restoration comedy ‘The Rivals’ to create ‘Jack Absolute Flies Again’. This sets the action in 1940 in the grounds of an English stately home which has been commandeered to host an RAF squadron. The National Theatre production, directed by Emily Burns (which we saw this week at The Odeon in Milton Keynes as an NT Live filmed broadcast) boasts a beautiful set by Mark Thompson. ‘Jack Absolute Flies Again’ is cartoonishly broad comedy - extremely silly but enjoyably likeable. From the start there is plenty breaking of the fourth wall (with characters pointing out “that didn’t happen in the original!”). Caroline Quentin’s Mrs Malaprop stretches her malapropisms to the limit and beyond, before playing with our expectations. The cast are all having a ball - and there is a great 1940s dance sequence. But Richard Bean and Oliver Chris also manage to inject a little serious wartime poignancy into the pantomime.
posted by Robin Simpson @ 10:40 am
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