The Times has this play as one of its top five theatrical events, and both the Guardian and NWN reviewed it ecstatically.

I can't have seen the same play because I'm afraid its charms escaped me entirely.

Sir Harcourt Courtly is looking forward to marrying the heiress Grace Harkaway, daughter of his old friend Max Harkaway and in line for riches when she marries.

Sir Harcourt travels to the Harkaways' country estate to meet his bride-to-be but his son, the debt-ridden Charles, arrives first, with his equally-feckless friend Dazzle. Pretending to his father that he's not his son at all, Charles soon falls in love with his step-mother to be.

Meanwhile Sir Harcourt is duped by the magnificently-named Lady Gay Spanker into believing himself to be in love with her, with attendant and predictable confusion.

Naturally all is resolved happily, as Lady Spanker's husband asserts his authority, and Harcourt stands aside in the name of true love.

Sir Harcourt (Gerard Murphy) resembles a cross between Toad of Toad Hall and Tweedleum, with his foppish attire, coal-black curls, and utter belief in his own attractiveness.

Geraldine McNulty's Gay Spanker is wonderfully excessive, as she extols the virtues of hunting and of whipping men into shape.

There are some lovely performances but the play, written in 1841, is verbose.

The absurdly convoluted speeches occasionally had audience as well as actors struggling for breath before the final flourish.

Billed as a romantic comedy, it somehow manages to be neither.

The play remains at The Watermill until May 17.

Pat Harper

3:48pm Wednesday 7th May 2008

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