The Mandrake

The Mandrake is an English adaptation of Machiavelli's great satirical play La Mandragola. Nothing unusual about that for the Fringe Festival, you'd think: except that the adaptation has been made by Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton, who died over 300 years ago.

The Director, Luke Beattie, is confident Compton's work will chime with audiences today. Firstly, there's the Machiavelli brand – and if you think that means characters who use cunning and deceit to get their way,” Beattie says, "Then yes, you'd be right!”

But combined with this, is the spin added by Compton himself: Compton was a hero of the Cavaliers during the tumultuous time of the English Civil War. He had enormous responsibility dropped on his shoulders when he was still very young, and struggled to be a leader while also facing serious conflict with family and friends. He spent the post-war decade fighting to regain his position, while repeatedly being flung into prison for suspected involvement in Royalist plots. However, he lived to see the Restoration of the king, and to rise again to prominence. His politics are never far from the surface of his work, and you can see the qualities of the man – shaped by extraordinary experiences and pressures – coming out through the plays.

"Machiavelli's original comedy goes after the immorality hidden under his society's surface, while Compton transplants the action to 17th century London, and brings the satire to bear on our own county's flaws,” says Beattie. "The whole collection of Compton's plays were only uncovered in one of the family castles in the late 1970s. When I came across them, a few scholars had written about them, but the plays hadn't received any attention from the theatrical point of view." Perhaps it's unfair to say that Beattie has become obsessed by Compton, but he has committed to the huge undertaking of staging all ten plays, starting with The Mandrake.

"There's the historical context to appeal to those who like period plays, but the language is much more modern and accessible than you'd find in Shakespeare, for instance. Also, our performance style is modern – we don't have actors in tights waving fans and hankies about. There's modern energy and a lot of physical comedy packed in there too. The language and context of the humour isn't too different from our own, either – actually, some of the humour is eerily modern.

"The characters in the play will do anything to get their desires – whether they're social, sexual, or financial. In the last year, we've seen fiscal disgrace in politics, sexual scandals in religion, and the usual endless parade of bedroom shenanigans made public. The characters of The Mandrake are going to be all too familiar to anyone who watches the news!”