Writer Richard Bean’s accomplished adaptation of 1746 Italian farce The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldoni transports the original’s evergreen comic scenario - a poor, starving fool of a Harlequin blundering into waiting on two masters at deadly odds with one another, in search of an extra meal - to Brighton in 1963, where the modern Truffaldino takes the form of the hapless Francis Henshall, lately fired from his Skiffle band and caught between two sets of hardy East End gangsters intent on killing each other. Commedia dell’arte ensues as Francis recklessly bumbles his way through every desperate effort to stop each finding out about the other, whilst eating literally everything he can get his hands on.
Opening to unanimous critical acclaim during its original 2011 run with the National Theatre, and becoming a global phenomenon, director Nicholas Hytner’s outstanding work is these days rightfully regarded as a modern classic the British stage. Today, in the throes of our prolonged global quarantine, it proves unweathered by the long near-decade since, as fresh, inventive, energetic and full of laughter as ever, and now, a sorely-needed tonic for these lonely days.
This is a spectacular production, alive with enthusiasm and almost bursting with love for the craft in every aspect. Mark Thompson’s beautifully realised, clever set design transports us effortlessly everywhere around the city of Brighton, from stately homes to the mean streets, to the posh restaurants in-between; Grant Olding seemingly captures the lightning of 60s rockabilly in a bottle and tosses it back to us via the considerable talents of in-house band The Craze, taking us on a musical journey back through time and placing us perfectly in situ in 1963; the Craze themselves treat us to their infectiously energetic, feel-good rockabilly stylings throughout, performing a short albums’ worth of memorable and ridiculously catchy numbers at (literal) intervals throughout; and certainly not least, an impeccably chosen cast make every performance a highlight down to the smallest of bit-parts, with even the ensemble giving some shockingly convincing turns in danger of bamboozling uninitiated or unwary viewers (or indeed, sympathetic reviewers).
To mention any stand-outs would be to list the whole cast, whom all – from lead James Corden’s pitch-perfect Francis Henshall, to Suze Toase’s delightful, doggedly driven Dolly, and Oliver Chris’ side-splitting Stanley Stubbers – display a spectacular talent for making the rigorously rehearsed seem improvisational, and never fail to do justice to the beautifully literary, playful, sparklingly intelligent, and laugh-out-loud hilarious writing of Richard Bean.
Indeed, it seems easy to see why this was the first choice for our onrush of indoor theatre of a rather different sort. It represents the best possible opening night: a definitive, superlative run of a classic, so practically perfect in every way that it would perhaps be no loss to the art of theatre to put a stop to all future staging efforts on account of the work having already achieved its pinnacle. A five-star tour-de-force of farce.
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