BWW Reviews: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Crucible, Sheffield, May 19 2015

The Sheffield Theatres production of Pride and Prejudice (using Simon Reade's dramatization of Austen's novel) offers an interesting approach to the material, combining broad humour with stylish choreography (by Scott Ambler). The material is played largely for laughs, although the romance is somewhat underplayed. The comedic emphasis works well with some characters - for example, Michele Austin as Mrs Bennett demonstrates a gift for comic performance with her asides providing some of the funniest moments of the production, and Abigail McKern puts in an equally enjoyable performance as the acidic Lady Catherine. The audience laughed throughout the whole production, and this approach certainly offers a certain level of crowd-pleasing.

However, for some of the smaller roles, the comedy is portrayed in slightly too-broad brush-strokes - and the one-dimensional nature of some of the characters can get a little grating - it works OK for Lady Catherine, as she isn't the hero of the story, but Elizabeth Bennett (Isabella Laughland) comes across like a sulky teenager and doesn't quite have the charisma and flirtatiousness you might want in order to buy into her relationship with James Northcote's Mr Darcy, who is given a little more opportunity to demonstrate the character's thawing from obnoxious egotist to lovestruck lord. Likewise, Mr Bingley is played with charm by Adam Buchanan, but he and the Bennett sisters largely seem a little under-developed in their characterisation, with the exception of Lydia (played by Nell Hudson) who is more distinguishable as a character in her own right rather than just another sister. This is not to say anyone gives an especially bad performance - it's a large and enthusiastic cast (supported by members of the Sheffield People's Theatre in non-speaking roles) but it's a shame that more wasn't done to distinguish the sisters from one another and establish them as full characters rather than caricatures, or to give us a reason to invest in the characters' relationships with one another - for example, we are told that Jane and Bingley love each other, but there's little demonstration of this in their interactions, and thus it is hard to root for their romance - or that of any of the emerging couples.

Despite some of the potential problems with characterisation, this production is given an extra, welcome, dimension, by its use of choreography. In some memorable moments, tableaux represent both paintings on the wall and characters' inner thoughts, and the way the reading of letters has been staged is very clever. The use of dance movements between scenes and locations adds a fluidity to the production, which is generally very well-paced. Oliver Fenwick's sympathetic lighting design transforms Lez Brotherston's inside-outside set to enable it to become a range of locations and times of day, and the combination of set, lighting and movement combine to give an almost magical, dream-like quality to proceedings. It's a shame, therefore, that more wasn't made of the romances in order to complement the dream-like visual elements. The characters' pairings occur in a very functional way throughout, and the audience never really get the opportunity to buy into, and root for, the different couplings. Whilst this is a pacy and lovely-looking show that garners many belly laughs, the emtional core is slightly lacking in the performances and thus it doesn't quite make the audience swoon. It's an enjoyable production, but it could have been magical.

Pride and Prejudice is at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, until Saturday 6 June

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