Review: NELL GWYNN, Theatre by the Lake
Photo credit: Pamela Raith
Jessica Swale’s writing has now reached wider audiences through her work on Paddingtonthe Musical, but we first saw her work with Blue Stocking in 2012 at RADA, so we were very interested to see her 2015 play, Nell Gwynn, in its latest production from Theatre by the Lake and Storyhouse.
Theatre by the Lake is a charming small venue situated just by the lake at Keswick, with the picturesque hills of the Lake District on all sides and a flotilla of boats to hire by the shore. It can played as an end-on theatre or in-the-round seating of around 400.
Nell Gwynn is challenged by being played in-the-round. While the attractive inlaid floor sets the scene of the restoration theatre and the Court of King Charles II, the view of the rest of the audience in modern dress as a background to the period piece is a distraction. It feels like this fascinating, insightful play into the life of Nell Gwynn - orange seller, courtesan, actress and mistress to the King - should be played in a traditional theatre like Richmond in Yorkshire to be properly immersive. We have all heard of Nell but Swale’s play takes us behind the scenes to explore how her relationship with the King’s Company under producer Thomas Killigrew, in the plays of John Dryden and the acting schooling of Charles Hart, led her to the attention of the philandering King. We see, too, her relationship with her mother and sister, Rose, and her rivalry with Queen Catherine, Lady Castlemaine and Louise de Keroualle for the attention of the King. It was, of course, of the time when actresses were first being invited to the stage replacing the male actors, like Edward Kynaston who traditionally played these roles. This fascinating historical background, the rebirth of theatre as we know it today, is a perfect subject for the stage.
However, it requires Rose Shaloo as Nell to convey the vivacious, clever, scheming ambition of the actress to establish herself for a short time (her acting career was only around seven years) in the King’s Company and attract the attention of so many men. She starts well, interrupting a prologue of an actor struggling with his lines and quickly winning over Charles Hart (Elliot Harper) and Thomas Killigrew (Adam Clifford) before falling under the gaze of The King (Guy Woolf) but she never quite convinces or sells to us why she was so successful on stage and off.
Stanton Wright has great fun as Kynaston, the actor displaced by her arrival, and Woolf conveying the self centred regal status of Charles, but it feels like it needs more nuance and variation in the interactions with them and the rest of the company, and the final epilogue failed to connect emotionally with us at her tragic early death around the age of forty. The actor-musicians delivering songs have the feel of the period but we found it hard to understand the words or how they support the narrative, so they become pleasant interludes rather than adding to the storytelling. Too often, as we sit on the traditional stage side of the auditorium, we find ourselves looking at actor’s backs blocking the speaker.
Swale’s play appears to be a good retelling of Gwynn’s life based on the documentary evidence available, and we admire Theatre by the Lake’s ambition in programming and staging three such different plays this season, that we believe they deserve our support and encouragement. But playing in-the-round requires the right play, a direction that makes the movement natural in playing to sides, and an intimacy that compensates for lack of setting and despite sitting in the front row, we left without any sense of these three elements. Yet, we did learn about Nell Gwynn and restoration theatre, and that made this trip to The Lakes worth the drive.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Nell Gwynn plays at Keswick’s Theatre by the Lake until 1 August, with further info here.