DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
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The Provoked Wife, Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
The RSC are in assured form in a classic Restoration farce
Comic turn: Caroline Quentin as Lady Fancyfull
[Pete le May]
STEPHANIE BROWN draws attention to the hidden labour of the female embroiderers, and how a 19th century replica made no such error
MIK SABIERS revels in a band that ploughs an idiosyncratic furrow of expletive laden, guitar-driven alt rock
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
The bard invites readers to a gig, raps for Clacton, and lays out the Burnham-Hurzeler conundrum
RON JACOBS recommends an important book that enhances the oppositional theories put forth by Fanon and, in doing so, remakes psychology itself
SIR JOHN Vanbrugh is reputed to have started writing The Provoked Wife when imprisoned as a suspected British spy in the Bastille.
Back in London he finished it years later, after the 1696 success of his debut play The Relapse. That non-linear track record had no effect on his shaping of this archetypical Restoration comedy of manners, in which young men about town hunt down equally willing young women in witty sex games.
The accompanying paraphernalia of masked disguises and cuckolding of gulled husbands reflects the manners and morals of an elite strand of a London society entertained by theatrical images of itself.
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