La Locandiera Review

One of the more expensive nights on the Fringe - admittedly justified by the four course meal - La Locandiera is a thoroughly contemporary take on the classic dinner theatre and an eighteenth century classic. Revolving around a battle of the sexes, which is equally a battle of national temperaments, it is an early entry in the gender wars of the modern era.

If the sexual politics are firmly hetero-normative, the script has sympathy for both male and female. Even the villain, an Ulster Gentleman, is given justification: the heroine, the Italian innkeeper, is morally ambiguous enough to be both temptress and puritan. Light comedy from a pair of aristocratic suitors rounds out the plot - their rivalry is both the context for the central conflict and a curt satire on the obsessions with money and status.

The proceedings gallop along, musical interludes break up the arguments about men and women and the elongated seduction, the misogynist is defeated and the appropriate marriage is arranged. The whole cast are delightful, the serious issues are treated with appropriate levity and the interactions between cast and audience are beautifully handled.

An example of how imaginative setting - an Italian restaurant - and clear direction can take an apparently irrelevant play and make it engaging, Wonderland Productions have reinvented light entertainment with a starter of lush costume, a side order of philosophical debate, a main course of excellent performances and a sweet desert of song and dance.

Read our preview feature for La Locandiera.