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Good evening. It's an overcast Tuesday in April 2022, and we're at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in London for tonight's production of Scandal Town.

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I'm Ruth Hall Theatre and performance officer at Torch, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.

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And for this torch post-show conversation, I'm joined by Caroline Taylor.

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Caroline is a dphil students at St Hugh's college Oxford,

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and she pitched Scandal Town for this podcast series written by Mike Bartlett's Scandal Town is billed as a restoration comedy for the 21st century.

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It's the event of the season and the fame hungry have come to play.

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But not all is what it seems when a web of lies and mishaps risk exposing the reputation of London's elites, the play,

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the Lyric Hammersmith production in association with a fictional company, and it's directed by the lyrics artistic director Rachel O'Riordan.

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We're going to catch up with Caroline before the show to find out what made her choose this play.

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Hi, Caroline. Thanks very much for joining us this evening. I read. Thank you so much for having me.

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As if to meet the person who is and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you want.

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So I'm a first year dphil and I tend to say 17th century theatre because that sounds more convenient.

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But the full title is Plague and Female Sexuality on English stages,

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mainly from 1590 to 1700, which I've been told is a slightly controversial time period.

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And then it goes on a bit too long. But I look at both early modern and restoration and everything in between.

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When it was well, illegal to put on a performance is publicly interesting.

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So and you were telling me earlier you're looking at the continuities between the before and after the theatres being closed?

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Yes. There tends to be a sort of tradition of bifurcating that century into the early modern, so so 1572, 16 for the late 1640s.

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And then again when the theatres reopen in 1660 after the Civil War and chasten those two very different beasts.

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And I think there are some very marked differences.

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So actresses are allowed to perform on stage professionally in the 60 days where they haven't been beforehand.

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But the continuities for me are more interesting.

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And I think to pretend that there was just this blank period of no theatre for about 18 years negates all

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of the underground theatre that was still going on in the theatre that was being printed at the time,

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even if it could have been performed and this tradition that kept going even through adversity,

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it's really interesting and it will be very interesting to hear what you might have thought in the light of the play.

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Lights are on the festival before we go in to see if we can take our seats.

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And what was it that made you choose Campbeltown as something you wanted to come and do one of these podcasts?

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Because it's very much a 21st century message.

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You play. It isn't. It isn't. And there were two main reasons, really.

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I wanted to do a podcast on a restoration plan,

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because restoration plays tend to be performed less than something like Shakespeare or Johnson or Middleton,

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for reasons that I can't quite understand. I think it's largely because we think of restoration comedies,

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particularly as very sort of embedded in that time period and not easily transferable in a way that we don't really with Shakespeare.

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We're very happy to put Shakespeare in modern dress and think of it as timeless.

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But when I was looking for a restoration to watch that just weren't any old, and then I stumbled across Scandal Time,

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and it's something that was promoted as a 21st century restoration comedy that was meant to be dealing with a

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post-pandemic world in the same way that the restoration was dealing with the aftermath of the Great Plague in 1665.

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And I thought that that would then create some really interesting parallels, not only with what I study,

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but also with why we're happy to sort of recreate restoration drama, but not stage restoration drama.

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I thought that was an interesting tension. Yeah, very much so.

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Now I know that you've had a little read of it beforehand, but I think we will steer clear of hearing for any spoilers of what you make of it.

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Yes. So you will pick up the conversation after the show.

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Fantastic. Thank you very much. Okay.

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So it's after the show. We're actually Paddington, Carolina.

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We're waiting for our train back to Oxford. But we've just seen Scandal Town.

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And I guess I want to start by asking me and kind of setting aside your research

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interests just to start off with what did you make of it as a piece of this added,

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you had to find it. I really, really enjoyed it.

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Um, I don't want to say I was pleasantly surprised because that sounds like I went into it thinking I wouldn't enjoy it.

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But I was quite I think, I suppose I was quite worried that it would kind of in trying to be a pastiche, it would go into parody.

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And I really felt like it did restoration comedy justice, but also was just an enjoyable piece of theatre,

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regardless of what visually stunning the influences were. Hilarious.

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And Lady Clymer, as we were saying after the show, was just spectacular and I just.

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Absolutely. Yeah. Really enjoyable evening out had a fantastic time.

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Yeah. I wish we could kind of convey the visuals we've just seen in people's minds as they listen to this.

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When I was flicking through the script and the costumes had been described as sort of restoration,

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inspired with a distinctly Alexander McQueen feel, and I feel like that sums up quite nicely.

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Yes, I think the costume design and set that were both really, really strong movements.

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And so one of the things that we talked about earlier is in the marketing material is calling this a restoration comedy for the 21st century.

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So you're the expert. Is it is it true?

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Is it does it match enough that that kind of feel for what restoration comedy meant?

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Yes, I would say it does. I was half expecting it to be a more sort of 18th century inspired piece just because plays like the

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rivals are more well known now and that that might be a sort of more natural jumping off points.

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But it did feel very embedded in restoration comedy.

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And I thought a really interesting way of celebrating the return to theatre after a period of time when none of us have been able to go,

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there were very clear restoration tropes running through out. So the lead catch of Jack is a clear libertine and very,

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I think obviously based on characters like the documented in amount of mode and loveless in looks

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last shift that he sort of epitomised that sort of like well very morally dubious restoration

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romantic leads and I thought it was a very intelligent performance in the bit on the basis that

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I had never really understood when reading it how a character that morally deplorable could be,

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that covers Mattock. And I felt like they somehow managed to capture that really well, but also the level of political satire running throughout.

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One of the things we were talking about earlier was that I'm not sure whether the political satire in Scandal Town is more immediate and more obvious,

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or whether it's that when I'm reading restoration comedy,

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I have to go and check the political references so it doesn't feel as immediate or as obvious.

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And I think bringing bringing restoration comedy into the 21st century by using these

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references made me rethink how obvious those political references were in the original place.

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Yeah. Yeah, we should probably try to avoid too many spoilers, but it's fair to say that there is a character in Scandal Town.

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He raps very clearly on. This is somebody who is well known in current politics.

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And so how about that? So what are the things that I've understood from talking to you today?

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Is that the way in which the generational divide is written and played was an important parts?

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Do you know what? Actually, I'm going to put you on the spot. If it's all right, that's fine.

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Oh, like the kind of general listeners who, like me, don't have any particular expertise.

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How would you sum up restoration drama or restoration comedy in particular?

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What are those traits that yeah, so restoration comedy is what a change of mind.

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What's described it as the Beatrice and Benedict dynamic from Much Ado About Nothing with more ridiculous characters around the periphery.

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And it tends to focus on a young couple who have attitudes that are at odds with

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their parents and who are desperately trying to find a way to be together,

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even though everybody around them is sort of working for that to not happen in in amongst that,

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there are some incredibly rude moments because parts of that generational divide, typically in the first half,

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restoration comedy is about a more liberated, younger group compared to a more staid elder generation.

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As we move into the 1680s in 1696, the culture shifts, that generational divide remains, but it swaps over.

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So the younger characters tend to be lighter and more.

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PC And the older characters are a little bit less so, shall we say.

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There are also the two main traits, really.

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You have a rakish or a libertine romantic leads who is a character who very much follows his desires and his impulses,

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normally to the detriment of those around him. And a witty woman has to sort of put him back on the straight and narrow.

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And normally, competing for that witty woman's affections is a [INAUDIBLE] character who is normally a Francophile,

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normally effete and a little bit ridiculous. And the generational divide is really sort of typified in the parental blocking figure who is an adult,

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who is trying to prevent any sort of happy ending from occurring.

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Okay. Very interesting. If we take that particular example of the generational divide.

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Yeah. How do you see that mapping on to what we saw tonight in Scandal Town?

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It was interesting, the generational divide, I think,

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in terms of the culture war for want to quote that Bartlet uses in the play between the older and the younger

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generation is very clearly there and the parental blocking figure possibly in the in the image of Mrs.

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Double budget or dual Bouchet as she insists her name is pronounced and wasn't quite as developed as I expected when she first arrived.

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As someone who was very desperately trying to not let her youngest son,

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son Tom out of her sights and trying to lead him into a career path that he wasn't that keen on.

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She was a very typical parental blocking figure, but she then only materialised once or once or twice.

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And I think certainly hard line about I don't know what I'd do if he ever left me for a woman, but I'd probably invoke legal action.

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It's very typical of characters like someone with a black anchor and and one of which it is early plays.

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So. But as I say, she was only there once or twice.

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I think more interesting is. The sort of tonal divide between characters like lady climber and and.

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They are not eaten. No gas.

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No prises for guessing who that character's based on. And the younger generation of lead characters,

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which felt more like a later restoration comedy that was more sort of along the lines of 68 and 6090s, I think.

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But it was definitely present, if not identical, to how restoration comedy functions.

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Yeah. You were telling me beforehand, and I found this really interesting because I hadn't given it.

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I hadn't anticipated it being something I would think about. But I did.

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Because you had mentioned it was how that generational divide, as played on stage, was received by the audience that they had that tonight.

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Yes and yes. How would you say that played out? I know you were listening for it.

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Yes, I read the play in advance. I've only just just prepared myself for what I was going to say.

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And I thought it was interesting that scholarship, I think, has a tendency not always as a tendency to be seen,

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that the younger characters have all of the audience's sympathy, and the older characters are always seen as ridiculous.

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And reading the play, I thought, I'm not sure that's going to play that way with a mixed audience.

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And I did find that sort of the generational divide on stage was.

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MARTIN Generational divide in the audience and the younger audience members tended to laugh at the jokes, at the older character's expense.

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And the older members of the audience might laugh at the jokes, at the younger characters expense.

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And I think that's probably more like how it was in the restoration as well.

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But we just assume possibly because we're so far removed from it, that, oh, well,

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the young characters are the protagonists and therefore everybody must sympathise with them.

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The other thing I thought was interesting that I hadn't spotted before is that normally when

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restoration comedy is staged today the older characters are played by much older actors.

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There's normally a sort of 40 year age gap between the young heroes and heroines and the older characters.

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The oldest character in this play is The Butler,

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but the majority of the older characters are in their mid-forties, so there's really only a 20 year divide.

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It's a generation rather than multiple generations.

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And I think it gives the sense of whiplash between what is culturally acceptable and what isn't or what is culturally normal

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and what isn't a far greater prominence and makes made me better understand how restoration comedy works that way as well.

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Yeah, that of course, both of these generations are going to hold on to their values because they've only changed very recently.

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Yeah. Okay. It feels like there's so much more we could go and see there.

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But for that, for the sake of time, then maybe let's think about.

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So you mentioned at the beginning that your your main research interest is about female sexuality

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and the plague in in the texts and that the plays in the period that you're looking at.

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So I guess an obvious question to ask about is how you felt like this play played in the light of the recent plague that has affected us.

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Yes. It's interesting as well that this was also marketed as a as a play for us of Post-Pandemic World.

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There were several references to the pandemic or as they called it,

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the plague in the show that were probably more obvious than is technical of restoration comedy and purely,

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I think, because at the time people didn't want to be reminded that they were in a venue that might in fact them,

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however, I thought was really interesting is that the character is Jack, who is because he criticised for leading a fairly debauched existence,

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find that his debauchery manifests in a pain in his gut every time he feels.

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But he's done something slightly morally dubious and that is something that I think felt more like the plays

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that I look at where sort of everyday activities become tinged by this fear of illness and fear of infection.

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And it was interesting that it was played with a male character rather than a female, which I appreciated,

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because the tendency in the 17th and 17th century drama is to sort of match that onto a female character,

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or at least to blame the female character for having infected the man.

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So it was nice to have his sort of conscience, as it were, manifested as a physical illness rather than constantly blaming the woman for that.

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Yeah, yeah, definitely.

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And it's interesting, like you said, that that's that was one of the main ways in which a sense of plague was addressed in the play that,

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you know, there are other references. There's at 1/2 a running joke, which we will encourage people to go and watch for themselves.

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But in some ways then it skirts around this.

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It does. And I think you were saying as well that the it is a running joke and that it is very much played for laughs.

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And I think that is something that I think that has been done deliberately and probably would have been done deliberately at the time as well.

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We all feel the need to sort of relieve ourselves of.

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The horror that we've all lived through. But at the same time, there is this sort of dark underbelly of illness that does run through the play,

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even though it's the the plague is treated quite trivially, I suppose, for want of a better word.

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Yeah. And it's been it's very fascinating hearing these layers that you're bringing, said the play, because of what you know about restoration comedy.

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And one of the things we were talking about on the tube over here was.

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To what extent do you think that Mike Bartlett, as the playwright, has got that deep understanding that the tropes and the expectations of that form?

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And to what extent do you think it helps an audience if they've got a degree of that knowledge, too?

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Yes. I think Mike Bartlett certainly has done his research.

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It felt very embedded in the sort of core values of restoration, comedy,

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that sort of stock characters like The Rake and The Falcon, the witty woman and the parental plucky figures were all there.

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The generational divide, I thought, was dealt with really well,

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and that was one of the things that I thought would be difficult to capture and instead,

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I thought was treated brilliantly in terms of how far an audience needs to understand it.

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I think an audience would certainly enjoy the experience regardless,

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and somehow I doubt that the whole theatre had all seen a restoration comedy in the recent past, simply because there haven't been that many put on.

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However. I think. Understanding what Mike Bartlett was doing and how he was mapping these characters onto well-worn tropes of restoration.

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Comedy does give us a deeper understanding of the satire that he is portraying in this.

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In this play, one of the characters that I thought was really brilliantly dealt with was Lady Clymer, who is a sort of an older female entrepreneur.

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Without wanting to spoil too much is described as that.

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The third place runner up in The Apprentice, 2015. Yep.

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And how she is, I think you can see echoes of characters like Angelica, Bianca, enough for Banks, the Rover and her.

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And Angelica Bianca is the character who is probably attracted the most feminist revisionist criticism.

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Since the play was four. What since the play was first started to be studies.

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And it was interesting that I thought the the character of later climate was presented really brilliantly and that even at the end of the play,

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you didn't really know where you stood with her, you weren't sure where your sympathy lay.

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And I think that understanding. The characters that she is perhaps influenced by.

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Gives a deeper understanding of how she might be a woman that's a product of her society rather than.

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A totally insufferable and immoral.

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Dragon, I suppose, is the best way of putting it. And I think that I'd be interested to see if in 20 years time,

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if we're still watching and reading this play, whether people bring a different attitude to that character.

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Yeah. Just to finish off.

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When when you got in touch to suggest doing this, it came across that you were really passionate about seeing your restoration drama staged.

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And you mentioned it was really hard to find something in this area you're interested in and set to watch.

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That's currently on in UK theatre. And so now you've seen Scandal Town.

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What kind of ideas do you have about what would you say its effects programme is if you had a chance?

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I think what I found really interesting was that the moments that the audience seem

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to enjoy the most were the moments that were most inspired by restoration comedy.

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I don't think I think there's this fear that restoration comedy is such an alien.

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Gene Rita is partly because it's very embedded in its time period,

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but also because the style of performance was quite melodramatic that maybe it just won't play to a modern audience, I think.

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That is having seen scandal time, that is very much not the case.

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It was played on this sort of heightened level of reality, and it did have the tropes that we would expect to see from restoration comedy.

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One of the things I thought was very interesting about this was how embedded in its cultural moment this play is.

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It is a 21st century restoration comedy, and as such, the topical jokes are very topical.

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I don't necessarily think that makes it unplayable in the future, and I don't think,

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therefore, we should look at restoration comedy as unplayable either.

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Yeah. Yeah. And you you spoke out here about an instance where there'd been a restoration

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comedy and a contemporary play puts on gether and playing alongside each other.

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All Yeah. Even against each other. So it's an interesting prospect, isn't it, to imagine that it is, I think.

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I think there were a couple of plays that could be paired quite nicely with

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this one I think effigies might have mowed or Colin Abbas loves last shift.

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Both would work really nicely in comparison with this play, just to give a sort of,

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I think a to give an idea of what might Bartlett has been inspired by,

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but also to show that unfortunately, things have not moved on that much in 400 years.

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And the same sort of concerns that we have now are the concerns that they had then and vice versa.

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Caroline, that's a perfect notes and thank you so much for coming along and thanks very much for having me.

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It's been a real delight to speak to you. That's it.