Northanger Abbey performed by Moving Parts Theatre Company at Worcester College, Oxford.
Moving Parts Theatre Company's brand new adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey is a sizzler. Clever, funny and ingenious, devised by Joanna Nevin, Martin South and Simon Hughes, it strikes just the right balance between period feel and irreverence. It will delight Austen fans and win new converts.
The story, condensed into brief scenes of dialogue, goes along at a spanking pace, and the half-dozen actors adroitly switch costumes and swop hats or wigs to represent two, three or more parts. A few feathers and a silk turban persuade us we are at a ball in Bath; some violent lurching and bonnet-gripping convinces us we are watching a phaeton jolt along the road from Bath to Bristol at breakneck speed; some tinkling of cutlery against crockery convinces us we are being served a fine dinner at Northanger Abbey.
In the lead rôle of the young and naive Catherine Morland, Anna Blackburn is exuberant, excitable and romantic, thrilled by the lurid Gothic fantasies she reads in novels , sometimes looking gleefully at the audience to share her pleasure or anticipation.
Dominic Bryant acts the handsome young hero, Henry Tilney, who notwithstanding his initial playfulness and teasing turns out to have serious and excellent principles. I just wish that in this production the actor had a better-fitting pair of breeches and less exaggerated stuck-on sideburns. The sideburn is a fashion that had not yet reached its peak in the Regency - it did that in the Victorian period, growing very shaggy and frightful. I have always thought the sideburns sported by Colin Firth as Mr Darcy in the 1995 TV film of Pride and Prejudice were excessive. A neater, more restrained sideburn would be quite correct for the fashions of c.1800, when Northanger Abbey was written.
Joanna Nevin plays the affected, fickle Isabella Thorpe as well as the sensible, sincere Eleanor Tilney, and Catherine's mother. It is a versatile tour-de-force. Just three other actors play all the remaining roles, with a bit of cross-dressing and a lot of fast switches.
The comedy of Catherine's imaginary discoveries in the locked room at Northanger Abbey comes up fresh and amusing, and the ending is appropriately romantic.
This touring production is being performed at more than 20 venues over the summer, so to book tickets, see the company's website:-
https://movingpartstheatre.com/