So good to have a laugh

Fiona Shaw as Lady Gay Spanker (left) and Simon Russell Beale as Sir Harcourt Courtly in London Assurance. Photo / Tristram Kenton

From the Helen Mirren-starring Phaedra to Alan Bennett's The Habit of Art, the English National Theatre's Live series has beamed its eclectic repertoire of plays into cinemas all around the world, including New Zealand.

The programme has been so successful that an encore performance of the hilarious play London Assurance has been added to the bill. Directed by Nicolas Hytner and boasting a cast that includes Simon Russell Beale, Fiona Shaw, Mark Addy and Richard Briers, the revival of Dion Boucicault's 1841 restoration comedy has been a surprise sell-out since opening in London earlier this year.

"It's exciting but we're a bit wary," said Beale before the big night. "Nick was saying that this is probably the most risky one so far. They've all been theatrical but this is just pure comic theatre."

Beale takes on the lead role of Sir Harcourt Courtly, a bumbling aristocrat who sets out to woo young heiress Grace Harkaway (Michelle Terry), only to fall for Fiona Shaw's delightfully manic Lady Gay Spanker.

"It was a fascinating part to play because he is completely self-absorbed ... basically he's a twit."

Born in Dublin in 1820, Boucicault wrote London Assurance when he was only 21. It ran for three packed-out months in Covent Garden before transferring to New York, where it also proved to be a runaway success.

The New York Times proclaimed Boucicault to be "the most conspicuous dramatist of the 19th century" upon his death in 1890. However, he has been eclipsed by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

"He was the first in that tradition of Irish playwrights coming over to England and writing situation comedies and having an acute eye on the English class system," says Beale. Beale believes it was Boucicault's lack of literary ambition that has led to him disappearing off the radar. "He knew that he wasn't writing great works," he says wryly. "He was just writing to have a laugh."

London Assurance was resurrected several times in the 20th century, including a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974 with the irrepressible Donald Sinden as Sir Harcourt. "He came and saw us recently and gave me Boucicault's cane," says Beale. "He told me he was giving it to 'the second best Sir Harcourt' on the condition that I pass it on to the next one. I was very amused by that."

Boucicault's original text has been sharpened up by playwright Richard Bean, although Beale insists it has not been drastically rewritten. "The modern ear tends to like slightly shorter comic lines," he says. "It was just a case of adding a few jokes and ... we'd spontaneously add a few lines on the rehearsal floor. But I hope we haven't ruined it."

London Assurance marks a welcome return to high comedy for the 49-year-old actor, who spent most of last year working in Sam Mendes' Bridge Project. "The Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington has said that these great English social comedies are performed very rarely nowadays," says Beale. "Ten or 20 years ago somebody with my sort of career, which has mostly been in theatre rather than film, would have done a Sheridan by now but I've haven't ... It's about time we looked at these plays again."

FILM

What: English National Theatre Live production of London Assurance, Dion Boucicault's 1841 restoration comedy

Where and when: Rialto Newmarket, July 24-26