Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s plays are rare birds on the contemporary stage. Their verbal plumage and formal grace are thought to be discordant at a time when social codes are lax and sentimentalism is a derogatory word. But as Tom Littler’s new production of The Rivals at the Orange Tree proves, Sheridan’s satiric play remains timeless in its dissection of human folly and vice. Transplanting the eighteenth-century amorous action to Bath in the 1920s, a strong cast of actors retell a tale of rival lovers, mistaken identities and misguided duelling through song and dance.
Sheridan was a master of character types. Like Jane Austen’s Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey, the playwright’s heroine Lydia Languish is the quixotic product of romantic reading. Her days as a flapper girl are spent fantasising about love in poverty, and she harbours the dubious goal of achieving an elopement that ‘gains such paragraphs in The Tatler’. In an effort to gratify her desires, suave (and rich) man-about-town Captain Jack Absolute masquerades as low-ranking soldier Beverley. However, he has to contend with buffoonish rivals (Bob Acres and Lucius O’Trigger) and interfering relations, namely his tyrannical father Sir Anthony Absolute (a descendant of Shakespeare’s Capulet), and the linguistically maladjusted Mrs Malaprop, Lydia’s wealthy aunt. At the same time, Faulkland, a neurotically insecure lover, frets about the sincerity of his fiancé, Julia.
The course of true love never did run smooth, as Sheridan knew all too well. To win singer Elizabeth Linley’s hand, the playwright escorted her to a French convent and fought multiple perilous duels against a rival suitor, Captain Mathews. Needless to say, when Sheridan put pen to paper, little imagination was needed. (In fact, some speculate that the infamy of this episode might even have eased the way for Sheridan to get the play staged.)
Director Littler doesn’t stick too closely to the playtext. For clarity and swiftness, he makes liberal cuts. The result is a play that is incredibly light on its feet—quite literally, in scene transitions the ensemble cast Charleston, foxtrot and waltz their way through moving staging. This accentuates the dance-like structure of the play, as couples rhythmically come together and split apart in the manner of an elegant minuet. But the effect is that the play’s commentary on class and power is passed over in favour of high jinks and seductive spectacle.
This light tone continues in the creative updating of Sheridan’s jokes. Faulkland, in particular, gets much comedy out of his role. At one point, he ventures into a chapel to test his lover dressed as a Traitors contestant. In another, he conveys the air of a vexed Cleopatra, reddening at the thought of Julia singing gaily at a nightclub while he pines away at home. Also brilliant are scenes played with Jack Absolute, his confidante and fellow would-be Romeo, which snap with Wodehousian wit. ‘Has Lydia turned you down?’ Faulkland asks; ‘Like a bedspread,’ Jack replies.
Since enunciation and linguistic precision were of particular interest to Sheridan—his father was a lexicographer and educator who wrote treatises on the art of speaking—it was a pleasure to see the cast handle the playwright’s words with dexterity and delight. Zoe Brough, an Orange Tree favourite, caught Lydia’s flights of fancy in enervated, dreamy locutions. Kit Young made for an assured Jack Absolute, his strong delivery reflecting the fact that fate had placed all the cards in his hands. Rob Bathurst as Sir Anthony put one in mind of a top-hatted Vesuvius, alternating between dormancy and fiery eruption. And Mrs Malaprop, a part Patricia Hodge was born to play, is less a grotesque pedant than a studious bluestocking whose relish for the English language comically exceeds her aptitude.
As this revival of The Rivals shows, London fringe theatres are doing outstanding work in keeping our literary heritage alive and relevant to a new generation of playgoers. As such, funding them is a matter of national importance. Commendably Littler has brought out what is ingenious in Sheridan’s writing: its spirited frolics, verbal mischief, and celebration of the felicity of when fate coincides with the haphazard whims of the heart. Anyone for The School for Scandal?
The Rivals
Comedy
By Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Director: Tom Littler
Photo credits: Ellie Kurtz
Cast includes: Patricia Hodge; Robert Bathurst; Kit Young; Zoe Brough; Dylan Corbett-Bader; James Sheldon; Boadicea Ricketts and others.
Until: Saturday 24th January 2026, before transferring to Theatre Royal Bath and the Arts Theatre Cambridge
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including an interval
Review by Olivia Hurton
3rd January 2026