Moira Buffini’s comic thriller Manor sets out the state of the nation

Manor 

National Theatre, London

It’s a dark and stormy night, the rain is dripping through the roof, the barn (uninsured) is in danger of collapse, the ghost is banging around the bedroom — all is not well for Diana, lady of the manor. And that’s before a host of refugees from the flood pour in through her front door and proceed to battle for the soul of the country.

There’s wise London nurse Ripley and her sullen teenage daughter Dora (unimpressed by the charms of the countryside: “I’m wet to my actual knickers and I nearly fucking died”); there’s gentle vicar Fiske and unemployed local lad Perry, who was found clinging to a hedge. And then there’s Ted, a smooth, suited-and-booted neo-fascist (“I’m exceptional”), who spies in the manor a talismanic headquarters for his jingoistic outfit and in Diana (Nancy Carroll) a woman desperate enough to let him have it. He travels with Ruth, a blind academic who brings the intellectual clout, and Anton (Peter Bray), a young man of colour, poster boy for the “inclusivity” of the movement.

Moira Buffini’s new play Manor offers a juicy set-up: a comic thriller that throws all manner of classic British country-house tropes — murder mystery, farce, Gothic horror — into a blender to find a dramatic metaphor for the state of the nation. We’ve soon got a body, a gun and a missing briefcase to play with, and a brewing showdown between those seduced by Ted’s talk of natural supremacy (Perry) or his money (Diana), and those repelled by them, most notably Ripley (an excellent, understated Michele Austin) and Fiske (David Hargreaves).

At its best, the play’s mishmash of styles feels timely (there’s a lot about climate change, here, as well as far-right populism) and its underlying message of hope is heartening. Lez Brotherston’s set is nightmarishly askew and backed by ominous, scudding storm-clouds (Nina Dunn’s videos). Fiona Buffini’s staging is at its most gripping when tightly focused on tense, character-driven exchanges, such as when Amy Forrest’s Ruth blithely expounds her racist ideology even as Ripley, who is black, is tending to her injured back. And it is most chilling when showcasing Ted’s tactics as he slithers into the gaps in his targets’ lives (Shaun Evans bringing coiled, sinister charm to the role).

But the piece loses its way. The action splinters into little groups, which splits the focus, leads to awkward stop-start pacing and leaches away any build-up of tension or real sense of jeopardy. The arguments start to feel forced and heavy-handed, driven by ideas rather than emerging naturally through the clash of characters; there’s no room for character development; and Moira Buffini’s usually glitteringly dark humour (so evident in Handbagged, Dinner and Dying for It) is only patchily present. The crucial briefcase, which should be the focus of real suspense, is underused. It’s a bold, ambitious piece that seeks to grapple with the fears of our age, but, like its characters, it gets lost in the flood.

★★★☆☆

To January 1, nationaltheatre.org.uk

The Wife of Willesden

Kiln Theatre, London

Literary heroines keep escaping their fictional confines and heading for the London stage at the moment. While at the Criterion Theatre Jane Austen’s maidservants have their mischievous way with her novel in the riotous remix Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), Chaucer’s Wife of Bath storms the stage of the Kiln, blazingly reincarnated as The Wife of Willesden.

Zadie Smith’s blistering debut play remoulds Chaucer’s lusty character, lifting her from the pages of The Canterbury Tales and setting her down in a London pub (lovingly created in Robert Jones’s detailed set). Here, the regulars are not on pilgrimage but on a pub crawl, and vying for the prize of a full English breakfast “with chips” from the landlady by outdoing their fellow drunks in telling stories and spinning yarns.

An author (clearly based on Smith and played by Crystal Condie) hovers nearby, laptop at the ready, looking for inspiration to shift her writer’s block. Blokes hold forth, couples tell of their “journey” and our novelist is at the point of despair when up sashays Alvita, aka the “Wife of Willesden”, married five times, encased in a tight red dress and ready to rumba. “I do not need any permission of college degrees / To speak on how marriage is stress,” she says, as she downs a Baileys and proceeds to pick up the evening by the scruff of the neck.

Smith’s text closely shadows the original, moving the prologue to contemporary London, the Wife’s tale itself to 18th-century Jamaica, and splicing Chaucer’s metre and rhyming couplets with Jamaican patois and north London slang. Indhu Rubasingham directs with impish flair: the cast flirt with the audience, fight among themselves, gleefully act out all the roles in Alvita’s narratives and frequently break into song and dance (there’s a deal more twerking here than in Chaucer).

Presiding over it all is Clare Perkins’s magnificent Alvita: outspoken, outrageous — a middle-aged black British woman at ease in her skin, demanding her space and demanding satisfaction (particularly in the bedroom). Perkins is a joy, relishing Smith’s rich, sassy script and the eye-watering frankness of her character.

★★★★☆

To January 15, kilntheatre.com

Little Women: The Musical

Park Theatre, London

If our Wife of Willesden were to put her question “What do women want?” to Jo March, she would certainly get some answers. The restless heroine of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, Jo is also currently on the London stage, busting every ladylike expectation of her in Little Women: The Musical, which retells the much-loved story of the four teenage sisters growing up in civil war Massachusetts.

As with Greta Gerwig’s 2019 film, this 2005 musical (book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein) focuses particularly on Jo’s literary ambitions. Bronagh Lagan’s staging opens with the spotlight on a lone desk and chair; Nik Corrall’s set has books in every nook and cranny; the action begins with Jo and siblings acting out one of the “blood and guts” melodramas with which she hopes to wow the New York publishing scene. The framing allows for the inevitable condensing of the novel — we’re seeing it almost as if in flashback — and the loss of key passages.

It’s still frustrating, however. Characters have little time to expand: Hana Ichijo’s Meg (sweet) and Mary Moore’s Amy (brattish) are particularly short-changed, as is the girls’ curious neighbour, Laurie (Sev Keoshgerian). Crucial episodes and relationships whizz past and the ethical backdrop of the war in the novel is barely touched.

But what both the musical and Lagan’s production do catch is the spirit, affection and exuberance of the young girls. There is a real sense of warm familiarity between the four March girls. Two of the show’s loveliest numbers involve Anastasia Martin’s quiet, tender Beth: a rippling, moving duet with Jo, as the younger sister faces death, and a sprightly ditty with lonely old neighbour Mr Laurence (Brian Protheroe), as the two forge an unexpected friendship. Savannah Stevenson’s Marmee too has a beautiful, rich voice and finds a little grit in a rather thanklessly wholesome role.

The show’s galvanising force comes from Lydia White’s excellent Jo: eyes burning, limbs flailing, she always seems too big for any room she is in, like a young colt penned up in a barn, and she delivers her solos with soaring passion. Her Jo should step along to meet Alvita and those Austen maidservants some time.

★★★☆☆

To December 19, parktheatre.co.uk