The Rivals
Orange Tree
★★★★

WHEN times are hard and the news unbearable, comedy is a must. And harking back to a past era offers a welcome escape.

Sheridan’s The Rivals ticks all the boxes when it comes to such escapism. Written in 1775, it epitomises so much that makes us laugh, from the intrinsic barminess of the human condition per se, through the convoluted stories we weave, to the wild eccentricities of individual characters. It’s for this reason it is still regarded as a classic and is still periodically revived.

And now Tom Littler gives it a whole new lease of life at the Orange Tree, Richmond, prior to a national tour, by setting it in the 1920s, and rendering it Noel Coward in style albeit against a backdrop of Georgian mores and manners.

The comedy centres on the loves and longings of an array of characters and progresses to a potential duel (the latter incidentally long outlawed by the 20th century).

Serious engagement with any other aspects of life seems lacking from everyone: all being limited to the wealthy confines of well-to-do Bath where they are based.

The main character, young Lydia Languish, indeed indulges exclusively in the kind of romantic aspirations only on offer to a highly privileged young woman with no money worries.

Her head buried constantly in what we’d now call chick-lit, Lydia and the other women in the play clearly know their unshakeable place in society, judged as they are by their youth and beauty and with no purpose in life except to be handed over to potential husbands like chattels.

That they make the best of it while the going’s good betrays a kind of hedonism we can all understand: the rutting season in all its glory.

Not quite the 1920s where women had taken men’s jobs and nursed on the battle fields, though, but nevertheless still a society of fixed social behaviour compromised by basic human instinct.

And while we may wonder why we are revisiting a Britain where the class and gender divide are so entrenched, the writer’s skill and the director’s panache combine to give us theatrical reason at least.

The comedy hangs initially on the silliest of ideas: Lydia is so lost in romantic nonsense that she thinks only love with a poor man can be truly thrilling. Consequently, Jack Absolute – the object of her desires who also requites her passion – pretends to be a poor sergeant in the army instead of the elevated son of Sir Anthony Absolute.

From this and all the other characters’ shenanigans, a delightfully comic plot emerges, the performance of the famed Mrs Malaprop — who misuses words to the point of delirium — by Patricia Hodge being second to none.

Robert Bathurst turns Sheridan’s raw script into a mighty display worthy of Shakespeare. James Sheldon delivers a terrific Faulty Faulkland as if he were Stephen Fry on a good night and Zoe Brough’s Lydia portrays a candour ahead of its time.

But it is Kit Young who expertly centres the piece, bringing beautifully judged style and restrained swagger to the very human Jack.

Some uplifting twenties music and snatches of singing and excellent dancing make the show, and the exuberant costumes and fast changing sets from Anett Black and Neil Irish bring colour and high spirited energy to a confident cast.

All in all another big hit for Littler and the Orange Tree. Socially unchallenging though.  

Until January 24 2026. Box office: 020 8940 3633 or https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk.