The Country Wife

Published Wednesday 10 October 2007 at 16:25 by Alistair Smith

William Wycherley’s 1675 comedy of manners was a bold choice with which to launch the Theatre Royal’s opening season as a producing house. Restoration comedies are rarely crowd pullers and this show is going to have to sell a lot of seats to break even.

So it is perhaps forgivable that Jonathan Kent’s staging plays up the comic aspects of the work. For while the production loses some of the subtleties and social comment of Wycherley’s work by dealing in broad brush strokes, it also generates plenty of laughs.

This is, in large part, due to a wonderful, large comic performance from David Haig as Pinchwife - the abusive, jealous husband who unwittingly drives his young, pretty and initially naive wife into the arms of a notorious rake. Haig’s energy is boundless and his frantic asides to the audience prove the undoubted highlights of the evening.

Toby Stephens is, in a plum piece of casting, Horner, the sexual predator who pretends he is a eunuch to gain access to other men’s wives. Ridiculous and pouting, Stephens occasionally verges a little too far towards the cartoonish, but he makes a very plausible and suitably foppish gallant.

In fact, the company is universally strong, with both Patricia Hodge and Fiona Glascott bringing their very different feminine charms to the roles of Horner’s two contrasting conquests - Hodge the savvy town lady and Glascott the foolish, squeaking country wife of the title, who gradually becomes accustomed to the way of the world. John Hopkins as Harcourt is also impressive.

All this is played against a backdrop of a lush, stylised set, with a mix of period and more modern touches. It makes for a fine, if simplistic, interpretation - worth seeing alone for Haig’s Pinchwife.