The Young Visiters - Tabard Theatre
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
ROUGH Haired Pointer (Diary of a Nobody, Fred & Madge) is presenting The Young Visiters, by Daisy Ashford, at the Tabard Theatre – from March 4 (previews from March 1) to March 26, 2016.
The Young Visiters is the most famous book in history written by a nine-year-old. Daisy Ashford was a precocious Victorian child, and her comedy of manners giving a child’s-eye-view of the adult world was championed by J.M. Barrie and first published in 1919 (28 years after it had been written), complete with idiosyncratic spellings.
Mr Salteena is a very elderly gentleman (of 42), “fond of digging in the garden and parshial to ladies if they are nice”. He and his young, somewhat snobbish friend Ethel Monticue (who has an unhealthy passion for “ruge”) go to stay with a young Lord, Bernard Clark who is “inclined to be rich” in his “sumpshous” house, where Mr Salteena hopes he will be helped up the social scale and thereby win Ethel’s heart.
While he is packed off to be given some London polish at the Crystal Palace by one of Bernard’s friends The Earl of Clincham, speaking looks are exchanged between the young pair and Mr Salteena’s plan is inevitably foiled.
Described as a funny, ridiculous story, The Young Visiters is full of innocent – or not so innocent – double entendres and Ashford’s eye for adult absurdity has real comic bite.
Rough Haired Pointer revive their first production with a young cast of six – Andrew Brock, Jake Curran, Marianne Chase, Sophie Crawford, Jordan Mallory-Skinner and Geordie Wright.
The Young Visiters is adapted and directed by Mary Franklin and is designed by Christopher Hone, with lighting by Seth Rook-Williams.
Tickets: £15 – £17. Previews: £10. To book, call the box office on 020 8995 6035 or visit www.tabardweb.co.uk/.
Times: Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm; Saturday matinees at 4pm (except March 19). Extra performance: Monday, March 21 at 7.30pm.
Running time: 90 minutes (without interval).