A trenchant, funny story of female friendship and social mores. Rating
Unmissable!
“Live, laugh, love” would be an awfully vulgar way to encapsulate the lessons of Lin Coghlan and Shaun McKenna’s adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford, but as our heroine, Matty Jenkyns (Tamsin Greig) discovers, a thing being vulgar doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.
Matty and her sister, Deborah (Abigail Cruttenden) grew up in the village of Cranford, where their father was the Rector. Now middle-aged and still in Cranford, they belong to a circle of genteel women, all spinsters or widows, whose lives and social interactions are governed by strict rules designed to ensure propriety, conformity and compliance with the meanest interpretation of Christian values. When their cousin, Eliza (Phoebe Pryce) comes to stay, in a fashionable collar and full of radical ideas from nearby Manchester, and when Deborah then dies, Matty is freed to start living by her own values, for her own happiness.
Not having read Gaskell’s novel, I cannot vouch for this production’s fidelity to the original, but viewed purely on its own merits this is a beautiful, affecting piece of storytelling that makes these quirky, compassionate, resourceful 19th century women feel like our sisters in arms. They chafe against constraints; not so much those of the patriarchy (the play’s men are generally pretty decent), as against the expectations they place on themselves to be ‘good women’. They wrestle with deep grief and envy, social anxiety and terrible regret, responsibility and failing financial institutions. If this sounds emotionally charged, well it really is, at moments, but it is also consistently and properly funny, and the tonal changes never feel jarring. Much of the comedy relies on perfect comic timing from a brilliant cast, and while some of the characters – Miss Pole (Alexandra Gilbreath) and Mrs Forrester (Sara Crowe with a perfectly and perpetually guileless face) veer towards caricature, they have a humanity that redeems them. We are invited to laugh at their affectations and ridiculous schemes, but always with affection and a sense that these women are learning as they go.
Natalie Johnson’s costumes set the bright and exotic outfits of the out-of-towners against the drab but durable dresses of the village ladies. With plenty of multi-roling going on, the costumes also signal character changes, and as the audience is so close to the action we can appreciate small details like a worn coat or perfectly white Parisian shawl. Her set clads the Orange Tree’s stage and surrounds in warm wood, with cast iron hooks for bonnets at the four entrances. With the addition of a few stools we are in a parlour, some additional tables make a tea room and a couple of floor-length curtains transport us to the Assembly Rooms. Josh Roche’s elegant direction places similar faith in the audience’s imagination, and though this is a busy play, with characters moving in and out all the time, there is never movement for the sake of it.
Perhaps my own age and gender make me exceptionally susceptible to stories of women coming into their own, but it is a long time since I’ve seen a show that is simultaneously so trenchant and so funny, and which sends the audience out of the theatre with such a warm, seasonal glow. You will not regret spending an evening in the company of Matty and friends.
Written by Lin Coghlan and Shaun McKenna, from the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell
Directed and co-created by Josh Roche
Set & Costume Design by Natalie Johnson
Lighting design by Jamie Platt
Sound design and composed by Max Pappenheim
Movement direction by Patrice Bowler
Cranford plays at Orange Tree Theatre until 16 January 2027
