Lord Arthur Savile's Crime (Click here to visit AllEdinburghTheatre)
May 23, 2025 | By Hugh Simpson
★★★★☆ Accomplished
Church Hill Theatre: Thu 22 May – Sat 24 May 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Perfectly poised and beautifully staged, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime by Threepenny Theatricals at the Church Hill is great fun.
The play’s origin is a short story by Oscar Wilde from 1887 about a young aristocrat who is told by a palm reader that he will become a murderer. Lord Arthur thoughtfully decides to commit the crime immediately, so as not to derail his upcoming wedding, but killing someone does not prove as easy as he imagined.
The adaptation by Constance Cox is from 1952 and avoids a couple of the original’s darker corners. The result is a mixture of drawing-room comedy and melodrama, with nods to other works by Wilde. It certainly has a couple of characters and twists that aren’t strictly necessary, and is decidedly peculiar, but it is all rather enjoyable.
Director Dario Dalla Costa has fashioned a production in which everything is just so. Every look, gesture and inflection is polished, the accents (whether cut-glass or comedy German) are impeccable, and everything has been thought out with the utmost care.
The result is praiseworthy and immensely pleasing. The delicacy and almost obsessively clear diction do, however, mean that an already lengthy play is drawn out even further. Some of the humour, moreover, becomes a trifle bloodless and lacking in the necessary crackle. However, these are undoubtedly prices worth paying for a production so full of grace.
Lord Arthur is on stage virtually the whole play, and could easily become tiresome in his bizarrely entitled self-justification. Timothy Bond’s performance, however, is pitched perfectly, providing a beautiful study of a blithely oblivious upper-class twit with the merest smidgen of self-knowledge.
The supporting cast all turn in equally impressive performances. Lord Arthur’s butler Baines is the archetypal unflappable servant who is better informed than his employer, and is played by a suitably deadpan Russell Loten.
Lord Arthur’s various relatives – The Dean (Simon Boothroyd), Lady Windermere (Fiona Main) and Lady Clementina (Dorothy Johnstone) are depicted with just the right mixture of eccentricity and believability. There is a genuine relish to Main and Johnstone’s performances, while Boothroyd gives a masterclass in drunk acting.
Arthur’s fiancee Sybil is played with cheerful animation by Rebekah Lansley, while Elspeth Whyte has real presence as her mother Lady Julia, leaning into the obvious parallels with Lady Bracknell that Cox has inserted into the adaptation without going too far.
Geoff Lee’s palm-reader Mr Podgers has an eerie seediness, Alan Sunter’s anarchist Herr Winkelkopf stays just the right side of completely ridiculous, and Angie Fowler has an enjoyable cameo as maid Nellie.
There were a couple of moments of first-night hesitancy, but it is a testament to the ensemble that they were generally covered by others in the cast.
The lighting of Gordon Hughes and Neil French’s sound are very fine. The drawing-room set – designed by Dalla Costa and Main, and built by Alastair Delaney – is simply extraordinary in its size, solidity and precision. The costumes – supplied by Utopia Costumes – are chosen with a similar attention to detail.
In the end the production lacks a little of the sparkle that one might associate with Wilde, but is always charming.
May 23, 2025 | By Hugh Simpson
★★★★☆ Accomplished
Church Hill Theatre: Thu 22 May – Sat 24 May 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Perfectly poised and beautifully staged, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime by Threepenny Theatricals at the Church Hill is great fun.
The play’s origin is a short story by Oscar Wilde from 1887 about a young aristocrat who is told by a palm reader that he will become a murderer. Lord Arthur thoughtfully decides to commit the crime immediately, so as not to derail his upcoming wedding, but killing someone does not prove as easy as he imagined.
The adaptation by Constance Cox is from 1952 and avoids a couple of the original’s darker corners. The result is a mixture of drawing-room comedy and melodrama, with nods to other works by Wilde. It certainly has a couple of characters and twists that aren’t strictly necessary, and is decidedly peculiar, but it is all rather enjoyable.
Director Dario Dalla Costa has fashioned a production in which everything is just so. Every look, gesture and inflection is polished, the accents (whether cut-glass or comedy German) are impeccable, and everything has been thought out with the utmost care.
The result is praiseworthy and immensely pleasing. The delicacy and almost obsessively clear diction do, however, mean that an already lengthy play is drawn out even further. Some of the humour, moreover, becomes a trifle bloodless and lacking in the necessary crackle. However, these are undoubtedly prices worth paying for a production so full of grace.
Lord Arthur is on stage virtually the whole play, and could easily become tiresome in his bizarrely entitled self-justification. Timothy Bond’s performance, however, is pitched perfectly, providing a beautiful study of a blithely oblivious upper-class twit with the merest smidgen of self-knowledge.
The supporting cast all turn in equally impressive performances. Lord Arthur’s butler Baines is the archetypal unflappable servant who is better informed than his employer, and is played by a suitably deadpan Russell Loten.
Lord Arthur’s various relatives – The Dean (Simon Boothroyd), Lady Windermere (Fiona Main) and Lady Clementina (Dorothy Johnstone) are depicted with just the right mixture of eccentricity and believability. There is a genuine relish to Main and Johnstone’s performances, while Boothroyd gives a masterclass in drunk acting.
Arthur’s fiancee Sybil is played with cheerful animation by Rebekah Lansley, while Elspeth Whyte has real presence as her mother Lady Julia, leaning into the obvious parallels with Lady Bracknell that Cox has inserted into the adaptation without going too far.
Geoff Lee’s palm-reader Mr Podgers has an eerie seediness, Alan Sunter’s anarchist Herr Winkelkopf stays just the right side of completely ridiculous, and Angie Fowler has an enjoyable cameo as maid Nellie.
There were a couple of moments of first-night hesitancy, but it is a testament to the ensemble that they were generally covered by others in the cast.
The lighting of Gordon Hughes and Neil French’s sound are very fine. The drawing-room set – designed by Dalla Costa and Main, and built by Alastair Delaney – is simply extraordinary in its size, solidity and precision. The costumes – supplied by Utopia Costumes – are chosen with a similar attention to detail.
In the end the production lacks a little of the sparkle that one might associate with Wilde, but is always charming.
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