Pitlochry Festival Theatre, in repertory, May 2005

ONE OF the things that makes the original film of Kind Hearts and Coronets so special is that the many members of the aristocratic D’Ascoyne family are played by the one actor: Alec Guinness. It seems to us a theatrical idea because it breaks the naturalistic conventions of cinema. The film lets us in on its own self-conscious joke.

You assume, therefore, that a stage version will draw at least as much pleasure from the same conceit. That’s not the case. Although Gregory Gudgeon does get a fair few laughs for his multiple costume changes – not least when he appears as Agatha D’Ascoyne, a suffragette who gets whisked away in a hot air balloon – he is just one amusing turn among many.

Richard Baron’s production – seen during Pitlochry’s controversial new month of full-price “previews” – is a playful piece of storytelling that takes great delight in exposing the mechanics of theatre.

If you want the anti-hero Louis Mazzini (Hywel Morgan) to swim, you stick him on a trolley and roll him across the stage. If you want a dark-room to explode, you build a puppet theatre hut and blast the roof off. If you want a portrait to look familiar, you put an actor behind a picture frame.

It all adds an air of silliness to the sinister story of the disenfranchised Mazzini who murders his way through a family tree in order to become the tenth duke of Chalfont. On his way, he exposes the ugly side of the class system, encountering a cast of characters who are variously pompous, hypocritical, self-serving or engaged in the cynical pursuit of sex and wealth. The comedy seems only to sharpen the bitter taste the story leaves behind.

Ken Harrison’s set – a bare stage backed by a panelled wall giving way to a series of two-dimensional friezes – and the crew who keep it in constant flux deserve special praise. Apart from a mirthless trial scene, Giles Croft’s adaptation is as slick and well paced as the production itself. Maybe Richard Baron isn’t doing anything he hasn’t done before but it’s no less a daft and sparky evening.

© Mark Fisher, 2005

Related Links:

Pitlochry Festival Theatre website