Review: Overly complicated but energetic comedy brings Blackadder II to mind

Don Gil of the Green Breeches is a fast-paced, exuberant farce that is driven by a convoluted plot involving multiple identities, gender swaps and farragoes of twisted facts.

Hidden somewhere inside the play is a simple tale. Dona Juana (Hedydd Dylan) has been jilted by her bad-boy lover Don Martin (Doug Rao), who has run off to Madrid. She follows him, seeking her revenge not only on him but on the woman he left her for, Dona Ines (Katie Lightfoot). Her plan is to disguise herself as a man, the Don Gil of the title, and to woo Dona Ines, thereby destroying her happiness and Don Martin’s too.

But nothing is what it seems. As the plot thickens identities are changed, deceits build upon deceit. At one point there were four Don Gils in the mix, one of them a ghost. Long before then I’d decided to just sit back and let the energy of this roustabout comedy played by a top class troupe wash over me.

Katie Lightfoot as Dona Ines is Queenie from Blackadder II to a tee, a razor beneath her childish charm, and Heydydd Dylan gives Don Gil something of Edmund’s seminal wit. Jim Bywater as the confused servant Caramanchel could be Baldrick at a pinch, and Simon Scardifield as the mis-named Don Jaun might be Lord Percy.

But though it’s all as fast as flamenco and the cast have great fun with it, this play, in spite of its beautiful translation, is just a bit too complicated for its own good.

Nick Le Mesurier