Jack Absolute Flies Again
National Theatre

RICHARD BEAN and Oliver Chris’s brilliant reworking of Sheridan’s Rivals cleverly moves the location from 18th-century Bath to a 1940s country estate billeted by an RAF squadron.

The period setting perfectly suits the original play’s presentation of male bravado and sense of female liberation while much of the plot closely follows the original with Peter Forbes’s Sir Anthony Absolute providing a direct descendant of Sheridan’s domineering and irascible father figure.

Other characters gain a new lease of life updated to the 20th century. Caroline Quentin’s Mrs Malaprop is a suitable and memorable modernisation of the eponym character whose humorous abuse of language is more X-rated Del Boy than Sheridan and hilariously justified by the introduction of a seedy music hall past.

There is a dynamic chemistry to Laurie Davidson and Natalie Simpson’s duplicitous relationship as Jack Absolute and Lydia Languish, her bookish romanticism replaced by passionate social idealism and a bad grasp of cockney rhyming slang. Their sparring and jitterbug flashback dance sequence are highlights of this dazzling production.

The prologue has been replaced by a direct audience address and regular asides from Kerry Howard’s spirited serving girl in much the same style as James Cordon’s role in Bean’s previous National success, One Man, Two Guvnors.

Rival suitors for Lydia’s affections come in the form of colonial pilots with all the expected clichéd trappings, while the secondary love interest of Peter and Julia is hammed up for its worth before reality forces a happy compromise.

Director Emily Burns maintains a quick fire pace throughout and gives full reign to the characters’ potentials, while Mark Thompson’s designs play to both the original play’s setting and the cartoon-style parody of the characters.

As well as ridiculing courtship and the traditional battle of the sexes, the playwrights also amusingly highlight the class differences with Kelvin Fletcher’s salt-of-the-earth, inarticulate mechanic making hay with the pilots in the boxing ring.

Although comic moments and gags abound, the production shifts into a different mode with the stunning video, aerial battle sequences and poignant depiction of loss. This is a wonderfully memorable production and if you are not fortunate enough to catch it live then make the effort to watch it on screen in the autumn.

Runs until September 3 2022, box office: nationaltheatre.org.uk