This review is written following a press invite to the show.
The School for Scandal at the RSC is a new production of Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1777 'comedy of manners' play, directed by Tinuke Craig. Set in a period popular for grand gowns, elaborate wigs, and governed by strict morals, this biting play still speaks to contemporary audiences with its fantastic costuming and sharp humour, with a script that has been given some modernised touches. So too do composer DJ Walde’s score with rock band players and Ingrid MacKinnon’s choreography add to the contemporary updates.
The show opens on a vivid pink backdrop with a strutting, posing sequence worthy of Madonna’s vogue. The opening soliloquy that follows, delivered by 'leading-lady of gossip', Lady Sneerwell, immediately intrigues as it lightly mocks its ‘wokeist playwright’, plays on contemporary life and society, and toys the audience with the titillation of gossip.
Despite the age of the script, this production provides plenty of hilarity with its razor comedy, stylised delivery of lines, double entendre, witty asides, and clever nods at the more notorious aspects of history, including Britain’s colonial past. Characters such as Benjamin Backbite affect an exaggerated caricature of the upper classes, while the way Lady Sneerwell moves and shuffles sideways in her crinolines provides a joke in itself.
This is a play of salacious satirical scandal, concealed identities, hidden agendas, twisting sub-plots and deception; perfectly placed in the home of Shakespeare. A show of lascivious laughter with lashes and rouge; the gossip in The School for Scandal would likely make even Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown blush.
The set and the costuming for this production, however, are perhaps its crowning (or should I say feathered headpiece) glory. The show’s design by Alex Lowde is a fashionable, rosy and fuchsia twist on eighteenth-century wigs, petticoats, gowns and breeches. The neon lighting (Oliver Fenwick) and vividly pink set only add to the fantastically over-the-top, garish and ostentatious feeling of the whole production.
Charles Surface’s extravagant home, for example, with its mylar tinsel curtains, and bright pink fountain would not be out of place in a drag show. While trap doors, with rising props and characters, who often appear on stage mid-conversation, also add a smart aspect of ‘caught-in-the-act’, ‘overheard’ gossip to proceedings.
A tale of ruffles and rivals in high society, The School for Scandal is fan-crackingly, frivolously, and flamboyantly fun. As ludicrously entertaining and comically camp as it is pretty in pink.
Rumour has it… tickets for The School for Scandal are on sale now!
The cast includes: Geoffrey Streatfeild as Sir Peter Teazle, Siubhan Harrison as Lady Sneerwell, Stefan Adegbola as Joseph Surface, Jessica Alade as Lappet, Omar Bynon as Careless, John Dougall as Rowley, Riess Fennell as Bill, Emily Houghton as Mrs Candour, Wil Johnson as Sir Oliver Surface, Yasemin Junqueira as Moppet, John Leader as Charles Surface, David Mara as Trip, Tadeo Martinez as Snake, Shazia Nicholls as Morehouse, Yasemin Özdemir as Maria, David Partridge as Sir Harry Bumper, Jason Thorpe as Crabtree, Tara Tijani as Lady Teazle and Patrick Walshe McBride as Sir Benjamin Backbite.
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