Rakes, Lovers, Desperate Housewives, Herbal Healers and Horse Thieves…
Now, if that’s not enough to whet your whistle for a theatrical bit of mayhem I don’t know what is.
We’re talking The Beaux Stratagem which is winging its way to not one but two theatres in the region.
First it’ll be at The Cornerstone in Didcot on Friday June 26 and then if you head down the A34 aways (looking out for any highwaymen) you’ll be able to catch it at Newbury’s Corn Exchange on Tuesday June 30.
The Beaux’ Stratagem is a comedy by George Farquhar, first produced at the Theatre Royal, now the site of Her Majesty’s Theatre, in the Haymarket, London, on March 8, 1707.
In the play, Archer and Aimwell, two young gentlemen who have fallen on hard times, plan to travel through small towns, entrap young heiresses, steal their money and move on.
In the first town, Lichfield, they set their sights on Dorinda. Aimwell falls truly in love, and comedy ensues.
The Lichfield stagecoach is a’comin’ on over the hill, laden with gallants and garters intent on fine females and their even finer fortunes. But are they prepared for cross dressing Irish priests, a band of honourable highwaymen, lardy landlords, scheming servants and aimless alliteration?
The stage is set for one of the finest Restoration Comedies of the age. Farquar knits together a panoply of stock and ‘not so stock’ characters, weaving plots and sub plots in an 18th Century ‘One Man Two Governors’, where not all is as it seems and the country folk of Lichfield are not quite as dumb as we think. Well not quite…
“Since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing ‘em rattle a little.”
Enough said.