REVIEW - Northanger Abbey is clever, humourous and wonderfully exhausting to watch!

On Tuesday, we went to The Octagon, Bolton to see Northanger Abbey. Read what our reviewer Karen Ryder had to say about this bold reimagining of Austen's romantic novel...


How can an existing story be told in an entirely new way?  Well, it all depends on who is doing the telling.  And it also depends on how they tell it.  By having the central character of Cath divulge her story to the audience, with close friends Iz and Hen helping her out, we see how recollections, memory and bias can sway the same story in any direction when being retold.  Northanger Abbey by Zoe Cooper from the novel by Jane Austen not only adapts this classic with a modern twist and feisty flare, but it cleverly plays with the themes of the book whereby Cath blurs reality with fiction, by having the three characters presented to us as real people, who are re-enacting their story for our audience, consequently blurring reality and fiction in a whole new way.  This instantly paves the way for fresh interpretation and is really rather clever.

Zoe Cooper’s Northanger Abbey starts with the characters appearing one by one and immediately creating a warm and humorous atmosphere as they awkwardly acknowledge us, the audience.  Cath explains that she wants to tell us her story, and so we are plunged back in time to the day of her birth, where the unique identity of this play is instantly and brilliantly set, for her friend Henry is instructed to play her mum giving birth to her!  A bit of smutty innuendo is thrown in which serves to relax the audience and as we jump forward in time to see one of her brothers being born, Iz plays Cath’s dad and the idea of any gender playing any role is solidified.  This allows the characters to offer up contradictions, opposing viewpoints, and opinions dripping with sarcasm as to how they perceive the situations, characters and scenes.  This is evident early on for we see Iz as Cath’s dad, instruct Henry as Cath’s mum to crack on with her chores even though she is in the throws of childbirth, poking fun at the typically male dominance of the period. 

But living in a house with so many brothers, and a head full of fiction and imagination, Cath jumps at the chance to go and stay with her relatives The Allens in order to see what Balls are like (of the dancing kind - yes, I told you there was innuendo) and to hopefully meet someone and become the heroine of her own romantic story.  She meets Henry, and the fantasist in her may exaggerate her own background a little to make her seem wealthier than she is so that she may appeal to him.  After all, he lives in an Abbey and she has always wanted to visit a Abbey.  A Gothic one at that!  But she also meets Iz, and in this version, they are more than just friends.  Iz beautifully points out that although she reads and reads, she never sees herself in any of the pages of any of the books and it would be nice to have that.  Cooper has given Iz her wish.  As Cath’s imagination gets the better of her at Northanger Abbey, her worlds of reality and fantasy swirl together until she finds it increasingly difficult to differentiate where one ends and the other begins.  This is perhaps a reflection of the truths she has been trying to deny within herself about who it is she truly loves.  The ending of this play is not one I will ruin but I found it full of hope, beauty, and a love full of respect at listening to someone and giving them a place of representation in the world, in a classy and dignified way.

Directed by Tessa Walker, this play is no mean feat.  It not only requires the small cast of three to multi role and switch between genders, it often happens within the same scene, and then they could all switch roles with each other like pass the parcel!  The text overlaps, over lays, has multiple characters but only three actors who all require their own definition.  Therefore accents, tones, walks, movements and every nuanced detail is up for grabs at any given moment, and this production does not miss a beat.  It is wonderfully exhausting to watch.  With a bare set aside from numerous chandeliers hanging overhead, scenes are created from little but a table, some boxes and chests, a chaise long and a bucket full of imagination.  We allow the cast to make us believe they are on a horse and carriage, at a ball, or in a bedroom from their mere suggestions and they have so much fun with it, allowing us in on the joke. 

These details inject a self-mocking humour into the world of period dramas, with brilliantly twee dancing, a delay in the jigging on the horse and carriage, and moments of intentional over the top drama and shouting, pulled back in an instant to be polite and charming.  These moments of extreme light and shade made me belly laugh, as did the loving mockery of the class divide between society and, well – anybody Northern, such as the utter shock at Cath’s Northern pronunciation of the word “buckets,” as she is “corrected” with the supposed correct pronunciation of “barkets!”  Elements of their world that now seem bizarre to us, yet equally still exist (but are perhaps just hidden better in plain sight) are subtly challenged throughout and many of them are only finding their way into my consciousness after the show, for there is a lot to take in.

Rebecca Banatvala as Cath, AK Golding as Iz and Sam Newton as Hen work together as a solid unit and effortlessly flit between an array of characters, all the while supporting each other with clear respect.  They perform the whole show with no microphones, and whilst this is admirable, it sometimes leave their hard work lost to audience members, particularly when there are sound effects or background music competing against them.  Rebecca Banatvala did not stop and maintained the pace of the show throughout.  I don’t think she really left the stage and did not miss a single beat of her lengthy lexicon, nor of her perfectly timed emotive changes.  It was a really impressive performance.  AK Golding was the bees knees of accents and vocal changes, taking us from societal wealth to a Northern class dad in mere moments.  With tender and loving moments as Iz, to brutal and misogynistic moments as the men at the ball the next, any transformation was quick, clear and crisp.  Sam Newton was fabulous at creating an entire cast of hilarious characters and the quick whip changes from opposing deliveries was excellent.  Within the same breath, he is shouting at Cath, then sitting down to breakfast all sweetness and like.  The whole cast made sure to include all audience members and play to everyone in this octagonal theatre space. 

Northanger Abbey is not what I was expecting it to be.  I am not the biggest fan of works from this era as I get wound up by the notions and depictions of women.  I equally get wound up by being told what the novel represents, what it means and what I should understand from it, instead of being free to view it through my own lense and deciding what it means for me.  In short, dare I say it, I find there is often an unspoken snobbery with such works.  But this is exactly what Zoe Cooper challenges, changes and pokes fun at.  Every reason I was expecting to not enjoy this performance is actually every reason I did, for Cooper highlights humour, injects a playful mockery, and reworks with a keen, sharp eye.  It is Austen for our era.    
    

WE SCORE NORTHANGER ABBEY...



Northanger Abbey is on at the Octagon, Bolton until Saturday 23rd March 2024.

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE!