ajhlovestheatre

THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY

by John Nicholson 

directed by Kirstie Davis 

Southwark Playhouse – Borough, London – until 11 January 2025

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/the-massive-tragedy-of-madame-bovary/

If you’re looking for some festive escapist fun but don’t want songs and constant references to the season, get yourself to Southwark where this smart, cute riff on a challenging literary classic is a remarkable case of having its proverbial cake and eating it. John Nicholson’s script is a comic send up of Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert’s seminal realist novel, boiled down to just over two hours playing time and a cast of four, while also giving a clear, concise account of the plot and paying homage to the beauty of the words and ultimately the tragedy at the story’s core. That’s quite an achievement. That The Massive Tragedy of Madame Bovary, as it’s hyperbolically rechristened for the stage, is so much fun as well is real cause for rejoicing, Christmas or not.

The downbeat, not to say downright depressing, story of the rural doctor’s wife whose dissatisfaction at her mediocre lot in life and passionless marriage drives her to infidelity, debt and ultimately suicide (these aren’t really spoilers, the book has been around since 1857…what do you mean you haven’t read it?!) is played mostly, but not entirely, for laughs. The horsing around very occasionally gets a bit tiresome, and not every gag lands, but there are moments of strange beauty in Kirstie Davis’s production that provide welcome and affecting respite.

The jokey tone and execution of the staging, played out on Marion Harrison’s simple but evocative set of shutters, crates and drapes, is similar to that of Patrick Barlow and Maria Aitken’s long-running take on The 39 Steps. There’s dexterous multi-roling (one of the actors, Stephen Cavanagh, has fifteen roles to get through per performance), a rubber toy rat is hurled across the stage to indicate a vermin infestation in a rural French town, a seduction scene turns into a display of sleight-of-hand magic with bunches of flowers being pulled from under a voluminous skirt and rainbow streamers being dragged at length from a heaving cleavage, a blood-letting medical procedure becomes a fountain of Grand Guignol hysteria and excess. If you don’t find that sort of thing funny then you may find this show a bit of a trialn, but it has an innate bonkers-ness and charm that will likely prove pretty irresistible to everybody else. 

Author Nicholson and director Davis make little attempt to contextualise Flaubert’s novel (although there is an audience show-of-hands survey at the beginning to ascertain how many people in the house have actually read it!) or to analyse its importance in the literary canon, presenting it instead as a jolly romp, with lots of rough magic and direct address. That the tragic elements still seep through is pretty impressive and help transform a fun evening into a satisfying one. 

Georgia Nicholson’s Emma Bovary is a particularly striking creation, fully in tune with the less-than-serious approach of the production but also sketching with some sensitivity and conviction the crippling ennui and depression, as well as the voracious sexuality, that makes the novel’s titular character so compelling and divisive. The other three actors –  Cavanagh, Ben Kernow and Darren Seed – switch roles with dexterity, fizzing energy and good humour. If some of the physical comedy lacks precision, it adds to the overall hurl-everything-at-the-wall jollity, although the timing between bits of mimed physical business and Dan Bottomley’s vivid sound design is impressive. 

It’s just a thoroughly agreeable time in the theatre, one that pokes gentle fun at an iconic piece of literature while maintaining a strong degree of affection for it. Irrepressibly theatrical and buoyantly funny, this is required viewing for Mischief Theatre enthusiasts and lovers of superior spoof.