Beau Stratagem - our afternoon

 'Female quarry':
Pippa Bennett-Warner (Dorinda) and Susannah Fielding (Mrs Sullen)
 in The Beaux' Stratagem
Photo: The Guardian.

Beau Stratagem -- that was our pick for this afternoon's entertainment, a 1707 restoration comedy, brought to us from London.

We had no idea how funny it was going to be.

On the way home Rebecca said the play was next to One Man, Two Governors, which is pretty funny given that the two works are 300 years apart.

 There was everything to keep us laughing-- the body humour, the music, the text, the interactions of the actors, the costuming, the dead-pan lines, and the old problems or marriage, divorce, consent -- how could it have been all captured so many years ago.

The Kate Kellaway review in the The Guardian was a good start, as were other reviews out there.  But the review gave us no idea of how "really" good this was going to be.

If Beau Stratagem comes this way again, Rebecca and I will be there, and dragging along anyone else who expresses the least interest in an afternoon that will be full of laughs.