Reviews

Review: Nell Gwynn (Lowry, UK tour)

Laura Pitt-Pulford stars in the UK tour of Jessica Swale’s comedy about Nell Gwynn

Laura Pitt-Pulford (Nell Gwynn) as Nell Gwynn
Laura Pitt-Pulford (Nell Gwynn) as Nell Gwynn
© Tristram Kenton

If we go by plays currently being staged in the north, those 17th century folk must have had a riotous time. According to Cyrano, The Hypocrite and now Nell Gwynn, the singing and dancing barely missed a beat for war, siege or the death of kings.

It’s the music and spectacle that do most to endear Nell Gwynn to the audience. Though Jessica Swale‘s play took the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy last year, the narrative dialogue scenes can be rather stolid and the characters, including Nell herself, have no great depth, but music, song and dance, together with a nice line in bawdy gags and anachronistic humour, more than keep the evening afloat.

Hugh Durrant‘s splendid set echoes the playhouse, with its stage boxes and, ornamented with the King’s crest, the royal box; it also serves more than adequately as a background for the royal palace. At the beginning dignity strives with lowlife humour as George Jennings’ amiable apprentice actor attempts the prologue while an uncouth orange seller does a bit of sharp-witted barracking. Before long leading actor Charles Hart (Sam Marks) is coaching Nell Gwynn in acting and the entire ensemble of 16 is joining her in a typically energetic dance (choreography Charlotte Broom) to what would have been a 17th century music hall song if they’d had music halls in the 17th century.

The play gives a whistle-stop tour of Nell’s life as star of Thomas Killigrew’s King’s Company, one of the first English actresses, and as Charles II’s mistress. Historical accuracy is not Swale’s intent, but it’s a fair approximation to real events, even shoe-horning in Nell’s famous line, "I’m the Protestant whore!", but prolonging Nell’s stage career which in reality ceased in her early 20s.

Christopher Luscombe‘s Globe Theatre production, re-vamped for this tour, is unfailingly stylish, helped by frequently elegant, sometimes comic, costumes and, especially, by the superb and dramatically appropriate music of Nigel Hess. Emily Baines’ group of four period musicians comes dangerously close to stealing the show and Swale provides Hess with some wittily naughty rhymes to set.

As Nell, Laura Pitt-Pulford does it all: she knows how to sell a song, demure or saucy, she leads the way in the dance routines, she holds her own in the cut and thrust of theatrical (or regal) banter, she is human and likeable. If, at the end, we don’t really feel that we know Nell Gwynn, that may not be her fault.

Standing out in a capable cast are Mossie Smith, a shrewder cross between Baldrick and Nursie as Nancy, Nell’s dresser, and Ben Righton, a remarkably sympathetic Charles II, regal without dramatic gesture. All work well, from Esh Alladi’s bitterly camp turn as Edward Kynaston, the last of the male actors in female parts, to Nicholas Bishop’s bumbling John Dryden, always looking for the middle to his plays.

Nell Gwynn runs at the Lowry, Salford until 4 March and then tours nationwide.