The Recruiting Officer (1992)
About the Production
It’s been said that ‘The Recruiting Officer’ reflects the warm afterglow of Blenheim’, and certainly, for a play written in a time of war, it is a confident and optimistic work. The War of the Spanish Succession had begun in May 1702, the latest in a series of European wars triggered by the ambitions of Louis XIV, ‘The Sun King’, ruler of France. Queen Anne had succeeded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland just two months previously, and she immediately appointed the John Churchill, the Earl of Marlborough, as the Captain-General of her armies. As war began, Marlborough was made supreme commander of the combined Anglo-Dutch army, and the campaign began well for him. So well that in December 1702, Queen Anne made him a Duke. The apex of his success however, lay at Blenheim, in Bavaria, on 13 August 1704, where a masterclass of planning and logistics paired with tactical and operational brilliance saw his forces defeat the Franco-Bavarian army so heavily that Bavaria was no longer capable of continuing the war. Patriotic fervour reached a crescendo, with even his enemies at court acknowledging the scale of his triumph. The Queen gave him the royal manor of Woodstock, on which Blenheim Palace would be built. And it is into this atmosphere that the play invites its audience.
George Farquhar, in 1704, was a soldier, having taken a commission as a Lieutenant of Grenadiers in the Earl of Orrery’s Infantry Regiment as a means of earning money. His recent plays had been unsuccessful, and he’d married a woman the previous year who already had three children from a prior marriage. He was practically penniless. That summer, his duties took him to Shrewsbury for a recruitment drive, and it was his experiences there that led to his writing of ‘The Recruiting Officer’. Supposedly he even wrote it in Shrewsbury, while staying in his lodgings at The Raven Inn.
The play, when it opened on the 8 April 1706 was a huge and immediate success, but his share of the income from the play was barely enough to cover his outstanding debts. Worse, he had contracted tuberculosis, and had to resign his commission in the army. Weakened by illness, he wrote one last play, ‘The Beaux Stratagem’ in just six weeks during the autumn of that year, and it opened on Drury Lane in March 1707 to universal acclaim. Sadly, its success came too late, and in May 1707 he died, aged just 30 years old.
‘The Recruiting Officer’, played in the traverse along the length of the main hall at the Coulsdon Youth and Social Centre, turned out to be the last, to date, summer production to take place there. From the following summer of 1993, Theatre Workshop Coulsdon would take its shows out into the open air. ‘The Recruiting Officer’ too would see the open air, being revisited by the group only six years on, in 1998.
The Cast
Behind the Scenes
Image Gallery
The Reviews
An exuberantly Irish touch was brought to the post-Restoration scene by George Farquhar, and this has been admirably caught in Richard Lloyd’s production. The Youth and Social Centre has been virtually converted into a recruitment centre. Even the Gents is placarded with exhortations to join up. On a long platform down the centre of the auditorium, with the audience ranged in rows on either side, Lloyd himself, as the rascally Sergeant Kite, harangues the unwitting citizens of Shrewsbury. That part of the action which takes place on the stage is necessarily sideways on to the audience, which is not too good for the comfort of our necks. The production is one of the Workshop’s best efforts, swaggering, swashbuckling and acted with terrific commitment in Queen Anne costumes and uniforms. It must be said that the closing stages of the play drag a little, and I feel a few cuts would have tightened things up. But that does not detract from the overall effect which, to the accompaniment of Kevin Gibbon’s martial drum and the massed voices of Over the Hills and Far Away is a distinct feather in the cap of the company. The genial Farquhar generally makes even his dubious characters sound attractive. This is borne out by Paul M Ford as a beguiling Plume, the oil to Kite’s vinegar, with plenty of sex appeal to entrap Kimberley Argles’ deliciously roguish Rose. Chris Argles gives the second recruiting officer Brazen all the heightened colours of a character from one of Ben Jonson’s ‘humours’ comedies. Lisa Boniface is the very spirit of mischief as the wealthy Silvia who wins Plume’s love in male attire. Bruce Montgomery, as her father Justice Balance, is an innately sympathetic character who wins our respect. The bumpy courtship of Melinda and Mr Worthy is carried on by Tatiana Allison, tart and waspish, and a subdued, wimpish Simeon Dawes. The big supporting cast work well as a team, with a double helping of notable performances from Nathan Moughtin, who only a week earlier was braving the complexities of Beckett over at SLTC. Busy fellows, these amateur actors.
Donald Madgwick for The Croydon Advertiser
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