RSC Friends

I was reminded how overwhelming and uplifting theatre can be when all of the constituent parts of a production work as well as this one does.

Where to begin? The scenery, the huge edifice of Charlecote made this Stratford audience smile in recognition. It is also amazingly versatile facilitating the slickest of scene changes. The musical score encompasses elements of ragtime, music hall, and folk ditties delivered with aplomb and usually to hilarious effect by this extremely talented cast.

The verbal gymnastics of the men as they flaunt their command of rhetoric and try to justify, in quick succession, their monkish withdrawal from the world followed immediately by bumbling deception as they all fall in love and break their vows. Something of their failure to foresee the possible consequences of action seems to make the Edwardian setting, on the eve of the Great War, so apt. There is a poignancy in the four young men in their soldiers’ uniforms beginning their year of enforced celibacy hoping to return to marry their lovers. It makes the sequel, Love’s Labour’s Won quite unmissable.