My Cousin Rachel

Published Thursday 12 May 2005 at 10:50 by John Thaxter

Diana Morgan’s adaptation, long in the Stanley French catalogue, stays remarkably true to Daphne du Maurier’s last great Cornish novel, a 19th-century tale of jealousy and unfounded suspicions, even if its melodramatic ending is a touch less ambiguous and thus more forgiving to its manipulative heroine, who finally loses everything, including her life.

With a knife-edge balance between angel and she-devil, this is no easy role to play. But Rae Baker acquits herself magnificently as the Florentine widow with the subtlest hint of an Italian upbringing, glamorously gowned in black and moving with feminine grace through a Barton Hall of which she will soon become mistress.

She joins an equally fine supporting cast from Mark Piper’s first staging of the play last autumn, led with strength by Nick Waring as jealous narrator Philip Ashley, in thrall to his spellbinding cousin and foolishly mistaking a night of love for lifelong commitment.

Derren Nesbitt provides splendid comic relief as the family lawyer whose knee-trembling adoration for Rachel eventually turns to fiery hostility. Claire Wilkie as his headstrong daughter Louise wears her fine, well-cut costumes with attractive poise. Christopher James brings a touch of Olivier burlesque to his potentially villainous Rainaldi, Rachel’s impoverished admirer. But the regular scene-stealer is the discreetly attentive presence of Peter Byrne as Seecombe, the lovable family retainer in a jacket that has seen better days.

Geoffrey Scott’s sumptuous interior design is given an atmospheric lighting plot by Douglas Kuhrt.