Pride & Prejudice (Sort of)
Jane Austen’s novels and the subsequent TV and film adaptations are meat and potatoes to Brits. Whether or not modern English adults have read or seen them, the Regency romances are cultural touchstones. Mock Austen at your peril.
Pride & Prejudice (Sort of) takes on the challenge of …let’s say, having a bit of fun with the classic, and succeeds.
Fueled by brilliant teamwork by five -only five!- versatile actresses, Austen’s classic tale of class, love and manners is here turned on its head. Funny, modern, irreverent but always true to its source, Pride & Prejudice (Sort of) delivers genuine laughs, nicely integrated pop music and the actual story, for those of you who somehow haven’t read the book and even escaped one of the fourteen hundred filmed adaptations.
Pride & Prejudice (Sort of) started life at Glasgow’s Tron Theatre
Writer and director Isobel McArthur is one of the fabulous five, giving herself both the most over the top character (the broad role of the scheming, dramatic mother, Mrs Bennet) and also the most smouldering (heartthrob Mr. Darcy).
Our heroine, Elizabeth, is played by a modern, sarcastic Meghan Tyler, and much like in the source material, you often feel Elizabeth is too good for the moody Darcy. Perhaps she should run off with her pal Charlotte…?
Pride & Prejudice (Sort of) is on at the Criterion Theatre through February 13, 2022
A former ABC National, Dallas and Atlanta radio personality, Martina O'Boyle is now making movies and covering culture in London, Dublin, and as far in Europe as the cheapie flights will take her, for Pop Culture Beast.