The last venue I visited before the theatre lockdowns started was the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds for a delightful production of Quality Street, an amusing period piece that sat so perfectly on the stage of this wonderful 200-year-old Theatre. The first production we viewed thereafter was a recording of Pride and Prejudice (sort of) a lively fun take on the classic novel from the NST in Southampton which the lockdown prevented us from seeing live. How appropriate therefore that just prior to indoor theatre reopening on the 17th May we get the chance to view a stream of Being Mr Wickham a glorious tour de force performance from Adrian Lukis from the stage of the Theatre Royal based on the imagined reflections of the cad from Pride and Prejudice as he turns sixty.
Adrian Lukis with Catherine Curzon has written this charmingly clever piece, carefully weaving a back story for key characters from Jane Austen’s novel with historical references to the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo, Lord Byron and early 19th-century courtesan Harriet Wilson with scenes from the original book. He invites his audience who he addresses directly through the camera lens to make their mind up about his life. His questionable behaviours and attitudes cast him as the baddie in the classic story and viewed through the 21st Century lens his going “fishing” for young ladies or “having a crack” at her would certainly attract critics, but can we feel sympathy for him or excuse his actions?
When he describes life in Dr Hitchin’s Academy for Young Gentlemen on Dartmoor with vicious Masters brutalising their students or the horror of seeing a fellow soldier hit in the throat by a musket ball and the smell of sulphur, blood and flesh at the Battle of Waterloo, it is a chilling reminder of the unpleasantness of life for those outside the high society of the time. His evocative storytelling draws you in. Equally, his lively recollections with sparkling eyes about his time as a youth drinking Old Mr Darcy’s brandy, or later visiting the Ballrooms, Whore houses and gambling dens of London are full of amusing details that reveal his love of living life to the full.The production is atmospherically shot using three cameras with a view of the old theatre auditorium through a gauze as a background and enough setting and props to give it a period feel and allow for the multiple changes of location. It retains its theatricality throughout without revealing its technical capture secrets which adds to its charm including opening and closing with the single “leave the light on” lamp on centre stage. Guy Unsworth as director and Matt Hargreaves as Director of Cameras give the production an intimacy and constantly smoothly changing close-ups as if we are having a private facetime call with Wickham as he walks around his home. It is technically a very good capture, well-lit with good use of sound effects and music.
Jane Austin fans will recognise the storylines from his life at Pemberley, his relationship with Georgina Darcy, Elizabeth and Lydia Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy which show the well-researched base of the play and may be interested to learn from Wickham what has happened to them all since the period of the book. But even those less familiar with the story will enjoy the storytelling and Lukis’s excellent delivery.After the longest closure of theatres since the 17th Century, it brings the theatre into your home, presents a good defence of the life of George Wickham but also his message that there is one truth in life and that is to “Survive” feels appropriate as we emerge from such a challenging period for everyone and look forward to being part of a live audience again.
Review by Nick Wayne
Rating: ★★★★★
Seat: Online | Price of Ticket: £20
