Arden of Faversham has come into a huge amount of land but he still isn't happy. His wife, Alice, is having an affair with Mosby the butcher's boy. Unbeknownst to Arden, Alice and Mosby are forming plans to murder him. We are introduced to Arden (an accomplished performance from Ian Redford) before the play begins, as the audience filter in he is sitting behind his desk centre stage ostensibly running his business, which imports and distributes Chinese lucky cats, gold ones, (you know - the ones with the wagging arm). This little 'warehouse' pre-show rather sucks some of the energy out of the beginning of the play, stretched, as it was the night I saw, by a hold up with front of house. This unfortunately means that the company have to work really hard to get energy and pace back up for the opening scene of the play and unfortunately they didn't quite manage it.
I wasn't entirely convinced by Sharon Small's Alice Arden, not that Small isn't a good actress, it was the rather clichéd sex kitten characterisation that I found tedious and I couldn't find any reason to care whether she succeeded in her goal or not. In fact, contrary to what I was probably supposed to think, I found myself on team Arden.
The play really came in to its own, however, with the appearance of the murderers, Black Will (Jay Simpson) and Shakebag (Tony Jayawardena). These two, hired to murder Arden by another aggrieved party, were absolutely terrific. They had the best of the play and I enjoyed watching them enormously, special mention for the business with the crow bar and the assault rifle, great stuff.
This is the second play in The Roaring Girls season at The Swan and is a better play than The Roaring Girl, the rumour being the Shakespeare had a hand in it. Although I am left wondering why the only two strong female characters they've been able to find so far have been a thief and a murderer, this does not bode well.
Alison Kirkwood
