The story revolves around scheming seductress and innkeeper, Mirandolina (Elizabeth Keates) and her attempts to win over a self-proclaimed woman hater, the Knight of Ripafratta (Maurice Byrne), who is staying in the inn. Meanwhile, the gloriously camp, penny-pinching Count of Albafiorita (Alex Barclay) and the Marquess of Forlipopoli (Edward Kingham), a nouveau riche fop, compete for her affections.

From a modern day perspective, the notion of women as flirts and men as simpletons can seem a little archaic and the play has lost some of its relevance over time. But while its themes echo those of The Taming of the Shrew, it’s also possible to see Goldoni’s influence on latter day farce.

Katherine Gregor’s translation captures Goldoni’s fresh simplicity and lightness, but the language can shift oddly between historical and contemporary idioms. Most commendable are Andrea Hooyman’s direction, which is energetic and physical, and the cast, who embrace their roles with aplomb and provide a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

The Hostess of the Inn was first performed in Venice in 1752, and is remarkable for its portrayal of a woman who is feisty and in charge, but who still manages to be witty and smart. Not smart enough to see that her manipulations border on the cruel, perhaps, but her eventual epiphany is heartfelt and honest.

Giant Olive have produced a brilliant, sharp and fast-paced comedy, with an ensemble cast who are clearly enjoying themselves as much as the audience are. Elizabeth Keates is suitably sexy as Mirandolina and Paul Bryant manages to maintain Fabrizio’s dignity, while still aching with love for a woman who treats him shabbily. But it is Alex Barclay as The Count of Albafiorita and Edward Kingham as The Marquess of Forlipopoli who steal the show with their hilarious double act as they jealously fight for Mirandolina’s affections. Their perfect comic timing - a drunk scene is played by Edward Kingham with brilliant but hysterical restraint - lifts the humour into belly-laugh territory and is a joy to behold.

The sub-plot of two actresses pretending to be aristocratic women visiting the inn, while well-played by Jill Stanford and Clare Wallis, rather loses its way somewhere in the middle, but this is a terrific production that belts along with amazing pace.

Director Andrea Hooymans also brings in some lovely comedy business during the scene changes, using the actors to move furniture and redress the set. And Katherine Gregor has done a great job on the translation, using modern turns of phrase to good effect so that the inclusion of words like “scrumptious” and “zilch” while anachronistic, manage not to jar. The writers of the BBC’s Robin Hood should take note!

If all Giant Olive’s productions are as well-done as The Hostess of the Inn, this is a theatre company that is definitely going places.

Andrea Hooymans’ spirited production is most effective at camp, grandly theatrical artifice. Its ace is undoubtedly Edward Kingham’s unstintingly hilarious, gloriously bewigged and financially embarrassed Marquess, ably abetted by Alex Barclay’s oily Count. And Clare Wallis and Jill Stanford do an equally winsome double act as a pair of avaricious actresses in disguise. The production suffers from the odd clunking performance, but its real difficulty is the doomed attempt to force Elizabeth Keates’s Mirandolina into a modern, three-dimensional heroine. It asks us to take seriously the play’s apparent message, that all women are manipulative magpies in need of marrying off at the earliest opportunity. Despite the finely executed hilarity from the fringes, this noxious central axiom becomes increasingly difficult to stomach.

With this revival they certainly make a very spirited showing. Goldoni was influenced by Molière plays so this play set in a Florentine inn makes an appropriate successor to director Andrea Hooymans’ earlier production. Its title role, the innkeeper Mirandolina, running a hostelry inherited from her father, is typical of the new type of character with which he replaced those of the commedia dell’arte: industrious bourgeoise, honest and real, though the roles of her aristocratic guests, whom Goldoni loves making fun of, clearly have their roots in some of the stock figures of the old improvised comedy, something which is reflected in the way that they are played in this production.

Mirandolina is clever and attractive. Elizabeth Keates makes her delightful and straightforward but (especially when set against some of her colleagues full-blown playing) a little restrained for someone who has the charisma to make every male she meets fall in love with her. She is still charmingly vivacious and has an amazingly speedy delivery, always clear but sometimes not giving herself time to allow her brain to think before voicing the thought.

Her admirers include a hard-up Marquess, besotted with his own rank and good taste who offers her his ‘protection,’ rattling his sword in its scabbard whenever he does so in an admirable performance from Edward Kingham, including a drunk scene, that teeters just on the right side of the line between realism and caricature. One rival is a spendthrift count, showering her with presents (which politeness forbids she refuse), whom Alex Barclay plays as a full our foppish fool; another more secret admirer is a knight who claims to have no interest in women. Maurice Byrne makes him vocally awkward and rather a pedant, perhaps a conscious reflection of his possible origin in the traditional pantaloon character, but since Mirandolina seems to admire him, and seems to set her cap at him, this fits ill with the rest of the production – even though she finally rejects him for the man whom her father planned she would marry, her employee Fabrizio who comes over most humane of them all in as sterlingly played by Paul Bryant. As a couple of actresses passing themselves off as nobility a blowsily overblown Jill Stanford and a giggling Clare Wallis, making herself gawping and toothy, win their laughs as a broad comic du, while Tim Pritchett servant (I suspect several roles run together) matches Goldoni’s presentation of ordinary working people as real rather than just comic zanies.

Set designer Julianne Sota and costume designer and maker Prudence von Rohrbach manage opulence on a miniscule budget and the production has an energy and pace that fills the venue – a pleasant change from some fringe shows where a director who knows the script backwards expects a ‘naturalistic’ mumbled mutter to be heard beyond the third row. Just occasionally its strains belief a little too far: as capable a housekeeper as Mirandolina would never allow a hot flatiron to be put face down on a wooden table, let alone on a garment. I knew few people today use a flat iron but if you’ve researched enough to know that the handle should be wrapped in rags to avoid burning your hand surely you realise the face of the iron is going to be even hotter – and indeed it is used to burn one of the characters! But I quibble. It is not a quite perfect production but it is fun.

The follies of pride and the nonsense of love

REVIEW: THE HOSTESS OF THE INN
Lion and Unicorn Theatre

IT is 18th-century Florence and pretty inn keeper ­Mirandolina’s male guests are all agog as they vie for her affections. The latest in a long line of competitors are the flamboyant Count of Albafiorita and bumbling Marquess of ­Forlipopoli. But Mirandolina (Elizabeth Keates, pictured) loves her freedom too much to marry either of them. Used to flattery and ­obsequiousness, the haughty hostess is shocked when a new guest, the Knight of Ripafratta, declares himself immune to the “nonsense” of love. To teach this spartan man a lesson, Mirandolina sets out to seduce him. An early modern rom-com, this play is refreshingly ­subversive and its bittersweet ending will satisfy those bored by the sickly-sweet romantic comedies of today. True to the Lion and ­Unicorn’s reputation for well-produced classic theatre, this production by fledgling ­company Giant Olive boasts impressive costumes, set design and casting. Topping all this off is the acting, which is frequently superb. Alex Barclay in ­particular stands out as the ridiculous Count and Jill Stanford is brilliant as hammed-up actress Hortensia. In the second half, the mood changes, becoming suddenly darker as jealousy poisons the atmosphere in the inn. But there are still moments of hilarity, as when the Count runs around, madly upending laundry baskets and stamping on a peacock’s feather, before rapturously declaring that he has thus “punished” Mirandolina for her rejection of him. Rather like the Lion and Unicorn, this very entertaining play – written by Carlo Goldoni and adapted by Katherine Gregoris – is not widely known about, which is a shame as its lessons about the follies of pride are well taught and interesting.