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THE MARQUISE by Noël Coward
Venue: Richmond 1981
Directed by Ted Craig



Cast
Moira Lister
Michael Craig
Derek Waring
Tom Chatto
Ian Masters
Michael Dentith
Ann Thornton
Patricia Samuels
Terence Longdon

Review
At Guildford prior to tour
The Stage: John Frayn Turner

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.