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.
I'm Ruth Hall Theatre and performance officer at Torch, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.
And for this torch post-show conversation, I'm joined by Caroline Taylor.
Caroline is a dphil students at St Hugh's college Oxford,
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.
It's the event of the season and the fame hungry have come to play.
But not all is what it seems when a web of lies and mishaps risk exposing the reputation of London's elites, the play,
the Lyric Hammersmith production in association with a fictional company, and it's directed by the lyrics artistic director Rachel O'Riordan.
We're going to catch up with Caroline before the show to find out what made her choose this play.
Hi, Caroline. Thanks very much for joining us this evening. I read. Thank you so much for having me.
As if to meet the person who is and tell us a little bit about who you are and what you want.
So I'm a first year dphil and I tend to say 17th century theatre because that sounds more convenient.
But the full title is Plague and Female Sexuality on English stages,
mainly from 1590 to 1700, which I've been told is a slightly controversial time period.
And then it goes on a bit too long. But I look at both early modern and restoration and everything in between.
When it was well, illegal to put on a performance is publicly interesting.
So and you were telling me earlier you're looking at the continuities between the before and after the theatres being closed?
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.
And then again when the theatres reopen in 1660 after the Civil War and chasten those two very different beasts.
And I think there are some very marked differences.
So actresses are allowed to perform on stage professionally in the 60 days where they haven't been beforehand.
But the continuities for me are more interesting.
And I think to pretend that there was just this blank period of no theatre for about 18 years negates all
of the underground theatre that was still going on in the theatre that was being printed at the time,
even if it could have been performed and this tradition that kept going even through adversity,
it's really interesting and it will be very interesting to hear what you might have thought in the light of the play.
Lights are on the festival before we go in to see if we can take our seats.
And what was it that made you choose Campbeltown as something you wanted to come and do one of these podcasts?
Because it's very much a 21st century message.
You play. It isn't. It isn't. And there were two main reasons, really.
I wanted to do a podcast on a restoration plan,
because restoration plays tend to be performed less than something like Shakespeare or Johnson or Middleton,
for reasons that I can't quite understand. I think it's largely because we think of restoration comedies,
particularly as very sort of embedded in that time period and not easily transferable in a way that we don't really with Shakespeare.
We're very happy to put Shakespeare in modern dress and think of it as timeless.
But when I was looking for a restoration to watch that just weren't any old, and then I stumbled across Scandal Time,
and it's something that was promoted as a 21st century restoration comedy that was meant to be dealing with a
post-pandemic world in the same way that the restoration was dealing with the aftermath of the Great Plague in 1665.
And I thought that that would then create some really interesting parallels, not only with what I study,
but also with why we're happy to sort of recreate restoration drama, but not stage restoration drama.
I thought that was an interesting tension. Yeah, very much so.
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.
Yes. So you will pick up the conversation after the show.
Fantastic. Thank you very much. Okay.
So it's after the show. We're actually Paddington, Carolina.
We're waiting for our train back to Oxford. But we've just seen Scandal Town.
And I guess I want to start by asking me and kind of setting aside your research
interests just to start off with what did you make of it as a piece of this added,
you had to find it. I really, really enjoyed it.
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.
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.
And I really felt like it did restoration comedy justice, but also was just an enjoyable piece of theatre,
regardless of what visually stunning the influences were. Hilarious.
And Lady Clymer, as we were saying after the show, was just spectacular and I just.
Absolutely. Yeah. Really enjoyable evening out had a fantastic time.
Yeah. I wish we could kind of convey the visuals we've just seen in people's minds as they listen to this.
When I was flicking through the script and the costumes had been described as sort of restoration,
inspired with a distinctly Alexander McQueen feel, and I feel like that sums up quite nicely.
Yes, I think the costume design and set that were both really, really strong movements.
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.
So you're the expert. Is it is it true?
Is it does it match enough that that kind of feel for what restoration comedy meant?
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
rivals are more well known now and that that might be a sort of more natural jumping off points.
But it did feel very embedded in restoration comedy.
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,
there were very clear restoration tropes running through out. So the lead catch of Jack is a clear libertine and very,
I think obviously based on characters like the documented in amount of mode and loveless in looks
last shift that he sort of epitomised that sort of like well very morally dubious restoration
romantic leads and I thought it was a very intelligent performance in the bit on the basis that
I had never really understood when reading it how a character that morally deplorable could be,
that covers Mattock. And I felt like they somehow managed to capture that really well, but also the level of political satire running throughout.
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,
or whether it's that when I'm reading restoration comedy,
I have to go and check the political references so it doesn't feel as immediate or as obvious.
And I think bringing bringing restoration comedy into the 21st century by using these
references made me rethink how obvious those political references were in the original place.
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.
He raps very clearly on. This is somebody who is well known in current politics.
And so how about that? So what are the things that I've understood from talking to you today?
Is that the way in which the generational divide is written and played was an important parts?
Do you know what? Actually, I'm going to put you on the spot. If it's all right, that's fine.
Oh, like the kind of general listeners who, like me, don't have any particular expertise.
How would you sum up restoration drama or restoration comedy in particular?
What are those traits that yeah, so restoration comedy is what a change of mind.
What's described it as the Beatrice and Benedict dynamic from Much Ado About Nothing with more ridiculous characters around the periphery.
And it tends to focus on a young couple who have attitudes that are at odds with
their parents and who are desperately trying to find a way to be together,
even though everybody around them is sort of working for that to not happen in in amongst that,
there are some incredibly rude moments because parts of that generational divide, typically in the first half,
restoration comedy is about a more liberated, younger group compared to a more staid elder generation.
As we move into the 1680s in 1696, the culture shifts, that generational divide remains, but it swaps over.
So the younger characters tend to be lighter and more.
PC And the older characters are a little bit less so, shall we say.
There are also the two main traits, really.
You have a rakish or a libertine romantic leads who is a character who very much follows his desires and his impulses,
normally to the detriment of those around him. And a witty woman has to sort of put him back on the straight and narrow.
And normally, competing for that witty woman's affections is a [INAUDIBLE] character who is normally a Francophile,
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,
who is trying to prevent any sort of happy ending from occurring.
Okay. Very interesting. If we take that particular example of the generational divide.
Yeah. How do you see that mapping on to what we saw tonight in Scandal Town?
It was interesting, the generational divide, I think,
in terms of the culture war for want to quote that Bartlet uses in the play between the older and the younger
generation is very clearly there and the parental blocking figure possibly in the in the image of Mrs.
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.
As someone who was very desperately trying to not let her youngest son,
son Tom out of her sights and trying to lead him into a career path that he wasn't that keen on.
She was a very typical parental blocking figure, but she then only materialised once or once or twice.
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.
It's very typical of characters like someone with a black anchor and and one of which it is early plays.
So. But as I say, she was only there once or twice.
I think more interesting is. The sort of tonal divide between characters like lady climber and and.
They are not eaten. No gas.
No prises for guessing who that character's based on. And the younger generation of lead characters,
which felt more like a later restoration comedy that was more sort of along the lines of 68 and 6090s, I think.
But it was definitely present, if not identical, to how restoration comedy functions.
Yeah. You were telling me beforehand, and I found this really interesting because I hadn't given it.
I hadn't anticipated it being something I would think about. But I did.
Because you had mentioned it was how that generational divide, as played on stage, was received by the audience that they had that tonight.
Yes and yes. How would you say that played out? I know you were listening for it.
Yes, I read the play in advance. I've only just just prepared myself for what I was going to say.
And I thought it was interesting that scholarship, I think, has a tendency not always as a tendency to be seen,
that the younger characters have all of the audience's sympathy, and the older characters are always seen as ridiculous.
And reading the play, I thought, I'm not sure that's going to play that way with a mixed audience.
And I did find that sort of the generational divide on stage was.
MARTIN Generational divide in the audience and the younger audience members tended to laugh at the jokes, at the older character's expense.
And the older members of the audience might laugh at the jokes, at the younger characters expense.
And I think that's probably more like how it was in the restoration as well.
But we just assume possibly because we're so far removed from it, that, oh, well,
the young characters are the protagonists and therefore everybody must sympathise with them.
The other thing I thought was interesting that I hadn't spotted before is that normally when
restoration comedy is staged today the older characters are played by much older actors.
There's normally a sort of 40 year age gap between the young heroes and heroines and the older characters.
The oldest character in this play is The Butler,
but the majority of the older characters are in their mid-forties, so there's really only a 20 year divide.
It's a generation rather than multiple generations.
And I think it gives the sense of whiplash between what is culturally acceptable and what isn't or what is culturally normal
and what isn't a far greater prominence and makes made me better understand how restoration comedy works that way as well.
Yeah, that of course, both of these generations are going to hold on to their values because they've only changed very recently.
Yeah. Okay. It feels like there's so much more we could go and see there.
But for that, for the sake of time, then maybe let's think about.
So you mentioned at the beginning that your your main research interest is about female sexuality
and the plague in in the texts and that the plays in the period that you're looking at.
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.
Yes. It's interesting as well that this was also marketed as a as a play for us of Post-Pandemic World.
There were several references to the pandemic or as they called it,
the plague in the show that were probably more obvious than is technical of restoration comedy and purely,
I think, because at the time people didn't want to be reminded that they were in a venue that might in fact them,
however, I thought was really interesting is that the character is Jack, who is because he criticised for leading a fairly debauched existence,
find that his debauchery manifests in a pain in his gut every time he feels.
But he's done something slightly morally dubious and that is something that I think felt more like the plays
that I look at where sort of everyday activities become tinged by this fear of illness and fear of infection.
And it was interesting that it was played with a male character rather than a female, which I appreciated,
because the tendency in the 17th and 17th century drama is to sort of match that onto a female character,
or at least to blame the female character for having infected the man.
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.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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,
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.
But in some ways then it skirts around this.
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.
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.
We all feel the need to sort of relieve ourselves of.
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,
even though it's the the plague is treated quite trivially, I suppose, for want of a better word.
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.
And one of the things we were talking about on the tube over here was.
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?
And to what extent do you think it helps an audience if they've got a degree of that knowledge, too?
Yes. I think Mike Bartlett certainly has done his research.
It felt very embedded in the sort of core values of restoration, comedy,
that sort of stock characters like The Rake and The Falcon, the witty woman and the parental plucky figures were all there.
The generational divide, I thought, was dealt with really well,
and that was one of the things that I thought would be difficult to capture and instead,
I thought was treated brilliantly in terms of how far an audience needs to understand it.
I think an audience would certainly enjoy the experience regardless,
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.
However. I think. Understanding what Mike Bartlett was doing and how he was mapping these characters onto well-worn tropes of restoration.
Comedy does give us a deeper understanding of the satire that he is portraying in this.
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.
Without wanting to spoil too much is described as that.
The third place runner up in The Apprentice, 2015. Yep.
And how she is, I think you can see echoes of characters like Angelica, Bianca, enough for Banks, the Rover and her.
And Angelica Bianca is the character who is probably attracted the most feminist revisionist criticism.
Since the play was four. What since the play was first started to be studies.
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,
you didn't really know where you stood with her, you weren't sure where your sympathy lay.
And I think that understanding. The characters that she is perhaps influenced by.
Gives a deeper understanding of how she might be a woman that's a product of her society rather than.
A totally insufferable and immoral.
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,
if we're still watching and reading this play, whether people bring a different attitude to that character.
Yeah. Just to finish off.
When when you got in touch to suggest doing this, it came across that you were really passionate about seeing your restoration drama staged.
And you mentioned it was really hard to find something in this area you're interested in and set to watch.
That's currently on in UK theatre. And so now you've seen Scandal Town.
What kind of ideas do you have about what would you say its effects programme is if you had a chance?
I think what I found really interesting was that the moments that the audience seem
to enjoy the most were the moments that were most inspired by restoration comedy.
I don't think I think there's this fear that restoration comedy is such an alien.
Gene Rita is partly because it's very embedded in its time period,
but also because the style of performance was quite melodramatic that maybe it just won't play to a modern audience, I think.
That is having seen scandal time, that is very much not the case.
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.
One of the things I thought was very interesting about this was how embedded in its cultural moment this play is.
It is a 21st century restoration comedy, and as such, the topical jokes are very topical.
I don't necessarily think that makes it unplayable in the future, and I don't think,
therefore, we should look at restoration comedy as unplayable either.
Yeah. Yeah. And you you spoke out here about an instance where there'd been a restoration
comedy and a contemporary play puts on gether and playing alongside each other.
All Yeah. Even against each other. So it's an interesting prospect, isn't it, to imagine that it is, I think.
I think there were a couple of plays that could be paired quite nicely with
this one I think effigies might have mowed or Colin Abbas loves last shift.
Both would work really nicely in comparison with this play, just to give a sort of,
I think a to give an idea of what might Bartlett has been inspired by,
but also to show that unfortunately, things have not moved on that much in 400 years.
And the same sort of concerns that we have now are the concerns that they had then and vice versa.
Caroline, that's a perfect notes and thank you so much for coming along and thanks very much for having me.
It's been a real delight to speak to you. That's it.