Cabinet Minister at the Menier Chocolate Factory – review

In both theater and comedy, timing is everything, and Arthur Wing Pinero’s story of a high-ranking MP embroiled in financial scandals could not have been revived at a more appropriate time, given the current media interest in the monetary affairs of the new British government. . Moreover, there is something touching about it Cabinet Minister Premiering on the day Maggie Smith’s death was announced, the film’s leading lady, Nancy Carroll, perhaps more than any other actress of her generation, inherited the lady’s stature in high comedy. As Lady Kitty Twombley, the intriguing and financially intemperate wife of the title character, she is extremely precise and focused, and when necessary, flamboyant camp, but most importantly, she is rooted in truth. When she’s at her most adorable, when she’s acting at her most terrifying, it’s practically impossible to take your eyes off her.

It is the highlight of an evening full of rare, unexpected pleasure. Paul Foster’s delightful staging is not really a revival, but rather a fiery recreation of a Victorian farce that, let’s be honest, no one wanted to see exhumed (the last London production in 1991 was quite a bore, despite a star-studded cast). This version is nice too – Janet Bird’s sets and costumes are absolutely stunning – but it’s a lot more fun. The contemporary relevance is obvious but never explored in detail, even in a piquant coda that suggests power and privilege have changed over the years but are fundamentally the same.

Carroll, adapting Pinero and chewing the scenery, has done a fantastic job of reanimation, shortening the running time, clarifying the plot, cutting out unnecessary characters, adding music (half the cast are actor-musicians, under the expert direction of composer Sarah Travis), and so many digraphs that the clergyman becomes he blushed. Foster whips this candy into a delirious soufflé that gradually builds over a fleeting, witty few hours, during which the tension between high stakes and comic glee is perfectly balanced, before exploding in a wave of recriminations and outrageous but rigorously disciplined performances.

Phoebe Fildes and Laurence Ubong Williams are wonderful as a pair of working-class siblings determined to climb the social ladder by any means necessary, and Nicholas Rowe imparts just the right sense of controlled panic beneath the elegantly refined appearance of The Right Honorable Julian Twombley, an MP teetering on the brink of disaster. Sara Crowe is wonderfully funny as his nosy sister, with an opinion on everything and a tendency to interfere with her military-trained son’s marriage (Dom Hodson, hilariously approaching every situation as if he were about to go into battle).

Dillie Keane, resembling an indigestion-stricken Caledonian version of Whistler’s Mother, steals every scene she appears in as the madwoman Lady Macphail, prone to describing her native Scotland in increasingly extravagant terms, blithely unaware of how socially she suppresses her heroically food-deprived son (Matthew Woodyatt, Glorious). Rosalind Ford and George Blagden are charming and very easy to root for as the unconventional young lovers, while Romaya Weaver (making a successful professional debut) and Joe Edgar are incredibly engaging as a pair of perpetually stupid children of privilege.

Then there’s Carroll, who plays Lady Kitty, raised on a farm but now hysterically fixated on maintaining her social position and money, with an irresistible comic edge and a gimlet-eyed intensity. I saw her spit out words like, “I’m riddled with duplicity!” at a moment of maximum tension, or turning to the audience with a smug, mischievous look as her nefarious plans seem to be coming true, is to see a sublime, peerless comedian at work, and every drama student in London should rush to the Menier to experience high comedy at this level.

So should anyone looking for a good time, where everyone and everything from the sublime cast to Oliver Fenwick’s luminous lighting, Betty Marini’s elaborate wigs and Joanna Goodwin’s joyous dancing are all on the same crazy page. Realistically, a straight re-release of Pinero’s original would have been a bit boring, but Carroll, Foster and team turned it into a life-improving triumph.