Emma Archives - North West End UK

10Oct

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Yorkshire & Humber

Emma – Sheffield Lyceum

Ryan Craig’s adaptation is aptly contemporary in places and unapologetically Georgian in others. The best affectations of Austen’s linguistic prowess are set upon with great effect, creating a poetic environment for the audience to exist in. This shape is shared with characters that feel real, embellished only in earnest moderation. Ceci Calf’s set design is deliberately sparse, leaving director Stephen Unwin with a very minimal arena for the characters to wrestle in. It is adorned only by a backdrop of blue/grey British sky and a couple of trees planted in the recesses of the stage to evoke the abodes of well-off English country families. Despite not being a physically transformative piece either, this feels right for Theatre Royal Bath’s production. So verbose and linguistically remarkab...

Emma – Rose Theatre

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her. At least, Jane Austen’s Emma did. Ava Pickett’s Emma has got issues. Handsome and clever but decidedly not rich, her father is a crook, her sister is a crackpot, and her own disposition is anything but happy. This Essex-set adaptation of the literary classic opens at Oxford’s May Ball and is throughout infused with the vaguely sickeningly hedonistic energy of that messy melee. Blatantly dismissive of the traditional Regency aesthetic of horse-and-carriage romance, this production instead takes on the look and feel of a Piccadilly Circus rickshaw ca...

Emma – The Pantaloons at Speke Hall

I’m a long-time fan of The Pantaloons and so it was a pleasure to see them back performing in the beautiful grounds OF Speke Hall with four new Loons making up the party. Emma was Jane Austen's fourth novel, first published in 1815, and tells the story of Emma Woodhouse (Rachel Cumming), a rich and spoiled young woman who takes it upon herself to become a matchmaker for the society of the town of Highbury, Surrey - while looking out for someone handsome, clever, and rich for herself - and in which the many parts of friends, relations, romantic interests, and anyone else vaguely relevant to the plot are mixed up and performed in true Pantaloons-style by James Alston, Molly Cheesley, and Richard Lessen. The question is, amid all the shenanigans and social mores, can she avoid the tornadoe...