Theatre Review: The Fair Maid of the West

The Fair Maid of the West: a pub, a ruff, a stringless guitar, and several giant rats. What’s not to love? Following her phenomenal play Pride and Prejudice (sort of), Isobel MacArthur returns with another comic belter. As if we needed more proof that she is the master of adapting well-done classic material, The Fair Maid of the West is a raucous, riotous, brilliant new work, which is currently playing at the RSC Swan Theatre.

Adapted from the 1631 original by Thomas Heywood, the plot follows Liz Bridges (Amber James), an intrepid young woman who has spent her life breaking up pub brawls and keeping the wild men around her (somewhat) in check. The locals around her are have-a-go comic heroes with hearts of gold and glasses of alcohol that appear never to be empty. The play nods early on to its perhaps middle-class theatre-going reputation and even has a line for the academics in the room, but makes it clear that this is a play for everyone.

A pub, a ruff, a stringless guitar, and several giant rats. What’s not to love?

And it certainly is. Whether or not you know Heywood is irrelevant: this is a play set entirely in working-class spaces and deals with the everyday – with love, lust, poverty, war… and even more alcohol. It mocks pentameter, pairs Elizabethan frills with tracksuits, and includes several jukeboxes. From its genuinely warm welcome by the narrator to its bonkers bar fights and spectacular sea shanties, this play is a journey to be thoroughly enjoyed.

The comedic timing warrants heaps of praise – the lightning-quick cast ensures that each joke and trick is perfectly executed. The Fair Maid of the West results in a laughter-filled auditorium from start to finish, with plenty of accordions and stringless guitars to go round. What was Heywood’s thinly-veiled praise for Elizabeth I has become a truly marvellous piece of theatre. Men and women alike have their marital woes, their lovesick songs, and their moments of glory catching rats in trapdoors. MacArthur has taken gender roles and put them in the washing machine, with great results. Male mental health, female strength in the face of adversity, poorly-timed proposals: there is no limit on gender in this space. Liz’s strength is a feat of acting and the characters around her weave their stories into hers with wonderful dexterity.

MacArthur has taken gender roles and put them in the washing machine, with great results

It is impossible not to be amazed by RSC regular Amber James. Also appearing in Cymbeline this year, she has proven herself to be of high calibre. Through her humour, her compassion, and her very presence on stage, she is undeniably a force to be reckoned with. She can at one moment deliver a touching moment with a pub goer that tugs on your heartstrings, and at the next have the audience cackling over a jab at Elizabethan society. She brings real warmth, energy, and humanity to the role of Liz and it is well received. Her remarkable ability to bring laughter at the shift of an expression or the change of her voice speaks to her talent and dedication.

It is impossible not to be amazed by RSC regular Amber James

The final piece of gold in this play is the comedic trio of Windbag (Tom Babbage), Roughman (Aruhan Galieva), and Clem (Emmy Stonelake). After all, who doesn’t want to see a terrible postman, a kind-hearted early modern bouncer, and an angry Welsh teenager spearhead a pub in Cornwall? These are the faces we recognise from our most chaotic adventures in life, our larger-than-life acquaintances, and the hapless but well-meaning folk who can’t deliver letters on time (or, indeed, three months late). Their adventures with Liz take them across the West Country and even the sea as they navigate conflict, threat, and the horrifying ordeal of having cream before jam on your scones.

From ensemble music and karaoke to heartfelt connections and community chaos, The Fair Maid of the West is a play about the good and the bad which bind us together, the lengths we go to for the people we love, and the Spanish tapas we eat along the way.