Tartuffe
The Courtyard Theatre
14th October 2014

★★★☆☆

You know what they say - you wait for one Tartuffe then two come along at once. Well, okay, they don't, but they should. Although this production should really be no surprise, given writer/director Matthew Partridge's entry at the Camden Fringe this year. Without picking over the past, we thought The Washington Ladies - an updated version of Molière's Les Femmes Savantes - was a bit of a misfire. Translating Molière to direct rhyming couplets was clearly an intellectual feat but one that was aimed in the wrong direction and risked alienating the audience more than just running it as-is.

Thank God, then, that Partridge has decided to bring it closer to home - in geography if not temporally - resetting the play in 17th century England. This allows, at least, for the political substitution to be played out in a more satisfying manner, replacing all of the business with King Louis XIV with that of the English Civil War. It not only works within the storyline but also helps cement the themes of religion and duplicity within a grander framework of royal privilege and divinity. Pat on the back, one gold star.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here, the decent Sir George (Ian Recordon) takes in the apparently pious Tartuffe (Craig Karpel), giving him the run of his home, his wealth and the hand of his daughter Marianne (a young Scarlett Johansson... erm, sorry... Laura Horton). When it becomes clear Tartuffe isn't all he's cracked up to be - and has eyes for George's wife Elmire (Sarah Ratner), the household comes together under bolshie maid Dorine (Karen Collins) to expose his treachery.

To consider the play's ultimate doom, we must address the elephant in the room. That is, as you may have guessed, the return of the rhyming couplets. Immediately I was put at ease by Peter Cabrera's gliding delivery, giving us the prologue in smooth tones, his energetic foppishness as Captain Valère not beholden to the staid metre carrying off the rhymes without drawing attention to them. Whether it's the mostly solid delivery - a few haven't quite kicked the habit of forcing the couplets - or simply Partridge feeling less hemmed-in, the dialogue is considerably less contrived. There's a much wittier streak of wordplay too. I don't know who to attribute the line "Now that I own you in words and deeds" to, but I'll give Partridge the benefit of the doubt.

However it's not all about the words - there's a rich vein of physical comedy running through the original that, despite his best efforts, Partridge doesn't quite carry off. Sure, the cast are (that rhyming thing aside) sound, with Freddie Hutchins as the effete Young George another treasure. Ditto Karpel as the villain himself, especially in the latter scenes as he flits from self-flagellating to sinful. But it needed a pacier, more frenetic energy to buoy some of the more languid blocks of text. It needed to be less Shakespeare, more sprightly. Collins' Dorine was fierce, but not quite the force of nature she could have been.

There were myriad other nice flourishes. For example initially framing the family in portraits before returning them to whence they came. Or the interaction between Valere and the audience in the prologue and epilogue. Yet no matter their ingenuity, they seemed underutilised - Tartuffe's seduction of Elmire, say, could have had added humour by placing Recordon back behind his portrait rather than in a trunk giving the audience more physical comedy to witness, turning a good scene between Karpel and an eyebrowy Ratner into an exceptional one.

I'm not going to Molière-coddle either Partridge or Nomadic Theatre - there could have been a bit more done with the source material. With that said, I'm impressed by how Partridge has upped his game since The Washington Ladies - this is a far stronger production, with plenty of laughs in all the right places.

Tartuffe opened on 14th October and runs until 25th October 2014 at the Courtyard Theatre.

Nearest tube station: Old Street (Northern)