Current Production
The Swan Theatre Company presents
A School for
Scandal
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Directed by Alan Morris
Monday 6th - Saturday 11th May 2019
Show starts at 7:45 pm
In May 1777, it was reported that a man passing the
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane heard 'an enormous roar coming from
within' and thought that the whole building was falling down.
What he actually heard was the audience responding to Richard
Brinsley Sheridan's new smash hit, The School for Scandal. By
the end of the 18th Century, it had been performed more
than any other play in London and has been regularly revived ever
since.
A crackling satire on an ostensibly polite society, the play is
populated by a cast of hypocrites, schemers, and fake news
pedlars. It is filled with dazzlingly sharp repartee, a
non-stop barrage of wit and farcical situations. Numerous
plots revolve around each other; an old men trying to manage his
young wife, a widow's revenge on those who maligned her, brothers
whose characters are the opposite of what they seem and a rich
uncle from the far east who returns unexpectedly. However,
all of these are simply a way to get "the scandalmongers" on stage
and watch while they demolish the characters of all their friends
and acquaintances - including any of their company that happen to
leave the room for a moment. The brilliance of the writing is
that, although the times may have changed, the scandal and gossip
are as fresh (and sometimes as nasty!) as if they had appeared on
Twitter rather than the scandal sheets of the time.
As Lady Sneerwell says: 'Wounded myself in the early part
of my life by the envenomed tongue of slander, I confess I have
since known no pleasure equal to the reducing others to the level
of my own injured reputation'. Enjoy!
Doors open 7:15 pm, show starts 7.45pm.
TICKETS ON SALE TO THE PUBLIC FROM 15th April
2019