BWW Reviews: MANDRAKE, Brockley Jack Theatre, May 30 2013

There's not that many writers honoured with their very own adjective: Shakespearean; Dickensian; Shavian; and Machiavellian. Named for the extraordinary Florentine polymath, it's the mot juste for describing that most seductive of concepts - pragmatic morality. Just how seductive that can be is on show in Mandrake, Howard Colyer's adaptation of the Italian's 1518 satire. The cleverness one expects: what's surprising is just how funny a skewering of 16th century Church, State and mores can be.

Sir Nicia wants children, but isn't quite up to the task, so he employs a Parisian doctor, Callimaco, whose noxious potion will "guarantee" that Lady Lucrezia will be with child within a year. This quackery is, natch, all a ruse by Callimaco - not a doctor at all - to bed Lucrezia, since he intends to be the man to draw the potion's potent poison on the first night after the draught is taken - Sir Nicia, a simple soul, swallows the scam whole. But how to convince his bright and beautiful wife and square the deal with Church, Lucrezia's mother and even his own servant? That gives us a rollicking hour of fiendish plotting and ruthless manipulation.

Channelling one part Blackadder's first incarnation, one part the "Thriller" dance and one part a Carry-On character who would be played by Jim Dale, Will Parrot has a lot of fun as the lecherous Callimaco - though French doctors may disagree! There are excellent turns all through the cast too, with John McInnes' contemptuously clever sidekick, Ligurio, and Jean Apps' amoral matriarch Sostrata the picks.

If Howard Colyer's last adaptation at this theatre (Trojan Women) was rather bleak, his latest twist on a classic is a wonderfully watchable romp that packs a political punch to go with its comic cuts.

Mandrake continues at the Brockley Jack Theatre until 15 June.

Photo credit - Jon Bradshaw

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