If it’s farce you’re after, you’ve come to the right place, as The Game of Love and Chance is re-imagined for a 21st-century multicultural audience. Nigel Planer (most famously of The Young Ones and most recently of Inside No.9, playing an unhappy immortal) drags Pierre de Marivaux’s 18th-century classic high-kicking and singing into modern-day Britain, swapping two Asian families in the London suburbs for the original French nobles. Retaining the comedic tale of mistaken identity and the foolish things falling in love can pre-empt, this Tara Arts update adds in Uber, Primark and another new twist in the guise of a Bollywood score. So it’s singing and dancing a-go-go for The Game of Love and Chai – or when Rani met Raj. Rani is a successful, shall we say slightly square solicitor, due to be marrying the equally high-flying (and equally emotionally awkward) Raj – only thing is, she’s never even set eyes on the man, let alone spoken to him, so how can she agree to spend the rest of her life with him? In order to find out if he really is the one for her, Rani convinces her cousin Sita – who is rather more straight-talking than strait-laced – to act as the bride-to-be, so Rani can watch from the wings, with her mother, widow Kamala’s blessing. It just so happens that Raj has had the very same thought, swapping places with Nitin, his driver – with his father’s go-ahead. As class and passion clash, the story unfolds and the jokes flow. For more shows at the Lowry, click here.
Fri 30 Mar – Sat 31 Mar, The Lowry, Pier 8, The Quays, Salford, M50 3AZ. Tel: 0843 208 6000, 8pm (& 2pm Sat), £15.50-19.50, thelowry.com
- Words:
- Sarah-Clare Conlon
- Published on:
- Wed 21 Feb 2018
