Rosalie Minnitt certainly looks the part as she glides elegantly onto the stage in a muslin gown as her titular character, Lady Clementine. Her cute little nose ring also serves as an efficient visual clue that this isn’t going to be a Regency drama played straight. Indeed, comedic anachronism is the order of the day as the talented, highly-spirited Minnitt parodies those beloved period pieces like Pride & Prejudice and Bridgerton, and also satirise the vapidity and entitlement of the ruling class that still exist. It’s a brisk, high-energy hour with a gag rate that fires like a musket battery, yet falls into a comfortable groove that isn’t necessary safe, but is a little predictable given the madcap antics of Rosalie’s titular heroine.
The conceit is a familiar staple of the genre; Lady Clementine is nearly 27 and unmarried, a colossal no-no. Should she join that 27 club (not in the Cobain, Hendrix, and Winehouse sense) she officially gains the title of spinster, and carted off to an asylum. Minnitt highlights Clementine’s predicament with some neat multimedia gags (a gallery of put-upon women, Suffragettes, and genteel ladies playing tennis in hooped skirts – Clementine is even more of a lady out of time than first appears), like a blink-and-miss-it family tree that is supposed to bring the audience up to speed, and some great prop work, like a great gale of letters that bring the excitable aristocrat so much joy; ‘They’re like crack!’
That joke sums up the rhythm into which ‘Clementine’ settles; a neat set up on a recognisable aspect or common trope of the period drama, which is then undercut by a modern reference or a blast of decidedly post-Industrial Revolution language. And those gags come thick and fast, with Rosalie deftly savouring every intonation and gesture. She is a compelling and charismatic performer with a sense of mischief that’s more in-keeping with the anarchic historical riffing of The Great than the sexy but cosy Benetton utopia of Bridgerton. Yet ‘Clementine’ begins to feel perhaps a little one-note in its structure, despite the firework physicality and vocal dexterity of its star, despite the addition of other characters and the introduction of another much-loved staple, the big Disney ballad.
These few musical numbers aren’t a particular highlight, but are necessary for some dynamic ebb-and-flow in the otherwise breakneck pace. A cynical reading would also infer that ‘Clementine’ is as much of an all-round showcase for the estimable Miss Minnitt as much as anything else. She certainly has a fine voice, but the songs suffer from some shonky lyrics; although that’s surely down to the over-confident Clementine being somewhat lacking as a librettist, rather than any actual dearth of ability on Minnitt’s part.
While it’s a very entertaining, witty, and well-produced and staged show, ‘Clementine’ is content to bask in the tropes it highlights, rather than subvert them. It’s not the first show to fall into this trap; Manbo and Will Penswick‘s Scandi Noir homage ‘Nørdic(k)’ have also been happy enough for the audience to play ‘spot the reference’ in the past, and like those antecedents ‘Clementine’ is very good at what it does. The response from the crowd suggests that that’s more than enough, and by that metric it is undeniably a success.
‘Clementine’ runs until Sun 27 Aug 2023 at Underbelly Cowgate – Delhi Belly at 14:25