Last night I went to see The Rivals performed in Lancaster Town Hall by the university theatre society. It is a play set in Bath in the 18th century and was first performed in 1775. It mainly features around the characters of Jack Absolute (played by post grad student Leo Patel) and Lydia Languish (fresher Amy Batty).
Lydia, filled with romanticism from reading books, falls in love with poor officer Ensign Beverly and plots to elope with him. This young man is in fact Jack Absolute, a wealthy heir who has been betrothed to her by his father Anthony Absolute (played by Robbie Love) and Mrs Malaprop (Zoe McNamara), Lydia's elderly aunt and caregiver. Jack doesn't know his proposed suitor is Lydia, and rebels against his father, but upon finding out, he continues pretending to be both people, resulting in many comedic scenes.
As well as this main plot there are various subplots, but a clear focus is placed on the relationship between Lydia's cousin Julia (Yasmin Delves) and her partner Faulkland (Matthew Bosley). Faulkland is the jealous type, and constantly frets about Julia's fidelity while she is away. This is seen with great amusement by Jack and their other friend Bob Acres (David Helm), who is another suitor for Lydia. As you can tell the storyline becomes increasingly entangled, until the end act builds to a hilarious drama where nobody seems to know who they are!
I have seen many LUTG performances, and acted in two myself, and I must say that this is definately one of the strongest plays I have watched. There wasn't a weak performance among the cast of fifteen, and there were some brilliant casting decisions, in particular fresher Lisa Coleman as conniving cockney maid Lucy, and Bosley as Faulkland was genius. He not only managed to evoke sympathy with the audience despite his crazily active imagination, but also successfully portrayed the emotions he felt in a convincing way so he didn't become a comedic stereotype, as the role could have been.
Unfortunately the play was only on for three nights, so there is no way of catching it now, but it was a hugely entertaining evening, so a big well done to all involved!
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