Love and Friendship – St Augustine United Church
There is no shortage of ambition in Edinburgh Rep’s latest production, an affectionate parody of Jane Austen’s youthful novella Love and Friendship, adapted and directed by Oliver Giggins. Packed with heightened Regency melodrama, broad physical comedy and moments of gleeful absurdity, the production showcases a company with obvious talent and infectious enthusiasm, even if the material itself doesn’t always provide the strongest framework for that talent to flourish.
Rather than adapting one of Austen’s familiar novels, the production draws on one of her earliest works, written when she was still a teenager. The story follows the young Marianne persuading her Aunt Laura to reveal the astonishing tale of her youth, a tale involving doomed romances, improbable revelations of parenta...