What a
pity that the Yvonne Arnaud had to cancel its plans for
the projected musical Let’s
Do It – otherwise we would have been spared its
replacement The
Marquise. An early Noël Coward
excursion into 18th–century France, this revival from
1927 represents the worst possible policy for a theatre
such as the Guildford playhouse. It is
expensive, empty, retrograde – and undeserving of
support from arts sources in these hard-pressed times.
The script seems immature and emotionally synthetic –
even Noël Coward
himself said that he was "incapable of judging the play
on its merits". In fact later on he had the grace to
develop doubts about it altogether. Certainly without
his name on it the work would not be brought back today.
Played against a vast mottled marble set by Tony
Hemmings, the story unfolds as the attractive marquise
returns and renews acquaintance with two widowers who
had known her in earlier days as their mistress. She had
borne each of them a child – so the rest of the plot may
be imagined. The men are contrasting types,
clearly enough delineated by Derek Waring as “a pagan
soul” who has enjoyed life to the brim, and Michael
Craig, rather a dullard now, content to “frown, pray and
pretend”. Moira Lister injects a transfusion of fun into
the marquise, while much play is made of the staircase
and other entrances and exits. The only
other character to come to anything approaching life is
the daughter depicted by the lively Ann Thornton. The
young men are Ian Masters and Michael Dentith, the
latter at one stage resorting to near melodrama to try
to “bellows” the show into flame. I have to say it, but
a palpable miss.