Fair Maid of the West: Isobel McArthur, after Thomas Heywood

RSC, The Swan, Stratford Upon Avon

Runs: 3h, one interval, till 14 January 2024

4****: Roderick Dungate.

Performance: 6th January 2024. AD, Relaxed Performance.

“A Seasonal Rom Oozing with Good Will and Good Cheer.”

Isobel McArthur, adapter and director of this version of Fair Maid of the West, clearly enjoyed reading Heywood’s original scripts but felt frustrated that language and stylistic considerations hide the core play from us today. So she took the play firmly by the scruff of its neck and dragged it into the playscript Repair Shop. The play was returned to the RSC (and, I guess to the English-speaking nation) still just about recognisable, but ready for a suitably irreverent production.

The result is a hugely enjoyable, knock-about performance, wild in its imagination, with a warm and robustly beating heart at its centre.

Liz is working in a pub in the Southwest as, more or less, a rat catcher (important job, but would you want to do it?) She is courted by a handsome, warm-hearted youth, with loads of dosh and a huge … engagement ring. But she will have none of it; he, typical of his class, assumes money can buy him anything. So Liz moves to another failing hostelry and takes over as landlady; she builds it into a thriving pub through centring it in its community. But love is in the air and its course, of course, does not run smooth.

The play is ingeniously set within pubs (more or less) and McArthur brings into the narrative a host of weird, wonderful, and endearing characters with broadly Comedy of Manners names, Roughman, Bardolf, Windbag; nice period touch. Even the new-man-sexy love interest is Spencer, with feels a bit Comedy of Mannerish, too.

Liz is played with gusto and gigantic commitment by Amber James. She rules the roost as any East End landlady would (though my geography lets me down here.) And Philip Labey as Spencer is as totally loveable as a year old labrador puppy and ensures we will the plot to resolve with a successful love-match. Spoiler alert, it does.

The more wild the jokes the more we enjoy them; high up on the list is the juke-box running joke.

I would have liked a slightly less relentless pace in the first half, but this is addressed in the second half. Set Ana Ines Jabares-Pita is witty and setting changes are part of the performance’s delight.

The play may have been written originally to celebrate English power, but now it celebrates the power and richness of community and a desire for a more equal society. But these important messages underpin the play rather than placarding them for us, and herein lies much of its strength. And it celebrates the importance of good pubs, and I’m all for that.

Cast

Liz – Amber James

Spencer – Philip Labey

Pub Regular – Richard Katz

Windbag – Richard Babbage

Roughman – Aruhan Galieva

Duke of Lerma – Marc Giro

Newspaper Man – Mel Lowe

The King of Spain – David Rankine

Clem – Emmy Stonelake

Bardolf – Matthew Woodyatt

Creatives

Written by – Isobel McArthur after Thomas Heywood

Director – Isobel McArthur

Designer – Ana Ines Jabares-Pita

Composer – Michael John McCarthy

Lighting – Sinead McKenna

Sound – Niamh Gaffney

Music Director – Tarek Marchant

Audio Describers – Julia Grundy & Ellie Packer

Voice & Text – Jeannette Nelson