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1. A Respectable Family

There are more photos from this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

The Beaux Stratagem by George Farqhar - Gibbet

- BOVTS at the Vandyck Theatre, Bristol. Directed by Nat Brenner.

A brilliant comic restoration masterpiece, The Beaux Stratagem tells the story of two London bucks, Aimwell and Archer, who are down on their luck. They devise a scheme to marry wealthy country ladies. Of course, once the plot is afoot, confused identities, misunderstandings and scheming servants, along with the unwitting intervention of a local gang of highwaymen, lead to uproarious complications.

The play was very controversial in its day, as it was the first popular play to address the topic of divorce with anything like an objective eye.

This was a lovely part to play, comic and villainous at the same time, with scope for a degree of swash and buckle too. I think this was the first of a multitude of scarred, piratical characters that I would play over the years!

Note a very young Nicholas Farrell in the picture below (second from the left).