11 – 20 September

Novels that have seeped into the national consciousness over, not merely decades, but centuries, carry with them obvious dangers for adapters to media new. The delicious nuances of Austen’s characters are brought to us through her use of language. Stripped of those nuances a stage adaption is left with the bare story and the talents of cast and creatives. The challenge is to bring the undercurrents to the stage through looks, gestures, tone of voice, timing and so on.

Ryan Craig’s adaption gives us the unlikeable Emma who, in India Shaw-Smith, is a perfect, meddlesome, pert, bossy-boots. Oozing independence and autonomy her fatal flaw of a lack of empathy sets the play in motion. The other characters ring true; William Chubb as the amiable and easy going father and an apparently detached George Knightly (Ed Sayer) for example.   And yet the things I found missing were the subterranean threads that hold the characters together on the printed page. Consequently when Knightly blurts out his affection it comes as a shock to the audience as much as to Emma.

The director, Stephen Unwin, has plumped for the comic aspects of the story and gets good value from the mistaken intentions of Emma and Elton (Oscar Batterham) whose misapprehension of each other’s attachments is delightfully buttock clenching.

Moving through confusion, joy and despair to happiness, Maiya Louise Thapar brings a crisp naïveté to the emotional arc of Harriet Smith, the hapless subject of Emma’s insensitive scheming.

Having been tumbled through the rapids of Emma’s inappropriate matchmaking she is deposited on the warm sands of Mr Martin’s (Daniel Rainford) steadfast affection.

Part of the 250^th celebrations of Austen’s birth this Emma is obviously a timely production. I noted a flurry of curtsies in the foyer prior to last night’s performance, for which a goodly number of the patrons were suitably attired and were no doubt bent on making an evening of it by immersing themselves in the habits and customs of Austen’s characters and contemporaries. (It prompted a thought on a comparison between this and a performance of The Rocky Horror Show, and the way we are compared to the way we were.)

Whatever its deficiencies the production is stylish and will please Austen aficionados. The elegant simplicity of Ceci Calf’s set and costumes is carried through into the characters’ demeanour. That formality we find so appealing, at least on stage and screen is a backdrop to the action, but here I think was not used to its full potential as a conveyor of hidden tensions.

Nevertheless this stage adaption is a worthy offering to the wider Austen celebrations.

★★★☆☆  Graham Wyles,  17 September 2025

Photographer credit:  Simon Annand