REVIEW: Being Mr. Wickham at the Everyman Theatre

Cheltenham

Original Theatre brings Being Mr. Wickham to the wonderful Everyman Theatre, a timely production for the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. An original and refreshing spin on Austen’s enduring 1813 novel, Pride & Prejudice, this play is set decades after the events and promises to shed new light on the familiar characters.

 

 

Adrian Lukis appeared in Downton Abbey and season 2 of The Crown, but one of his best-known performances is George Wickham in the 1995 TV mini-series of Pride & Prejudice. He reprises the role of Wickham in this one-man play, directed by Guy Unsworth and first performed at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath.

Mr. Wickham is a roguish character in Pride & Prejudice, making young ladies swoon and spiriting Lydia Bennet away, all to further his greed and spending habits. In this play, he has reached his sixtieth birthday, and plans to tell the ‘truth’ – or what he deems to be the truth – about the events he lived through back in his heyday.

I really can’t praise the acting and writing in this play enough. Being Mr. Wickham is a brilliant one-man show and character study, delving into Wickham’s childhood, relationship with Mr. Darcy, and his time in the war fighting at Waterloo. Wickham’s career as a soldier may have been a literal costume in the novel, but here on stage the uniform becomes a real, genuine experience that the man lived through.

 

The stories are performed like a grandfather telling tall tales from his youth, posing himself as the hero to entertain the audience and hopefully redeem his actions in our eyes. Reminiscing on his childhood, Adrian Lukis brings a vulnerability to the character that Austen’s novel didn’t show, and through the lens of old age we see that Wickham is a changed man after all. It is nice that he refuses to hear a bad word against Elizabeth Bennet, and talks highly of most of his companions, while still retaining a prideful swagger and captivating manner of speaking.

I’m delighted to say that we would absolutely recommend this production of Being Mr. Wickham. Being only an hour long, the production is short but sweet – bittersweet at times, but still a very enjoyable time out at the theatre. Mr. Wickham is only playing until 17 September, so grab your bonnet and buy your tickets now!

Review by Leah

 

For More Information & Tickets Click HERE

 

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