Lady Chatterley's Lover

Kangaroo Court have devised and interesting take on DH Lawrence’s notorious tale of illicit love between the classes. Updated to the mid 80’s, the time of the miners’ strike, it’s beautifully played and designed and slickly directed by Neil McCurley.

In this version Clifford Chatterley (Nicholas Thompson) is a Tory MP, determined along with his leader that the miners will be broken. He’s also confined to a wheelchair and unable to have sex with his wife, Connie (Sally Gooda). The problem is he needs an heir for the estate and title and actively encourages Lady Chatterley to have a child by another man they can claim as their own own. What he doesn’t reckon with is the burgeoning relationship between Connie and the sexy young gardener, Mellors (Paul Stacey).

Gooda, looking uncannily like Nicole Kidman, is superb as Connie, and Stacey is suitably earthy and intense as Mellors. Indeed the performances all round are terrific. The production doesn’t stint on the sexual content either, with virtually every sexual position and practice being performed. I think this is over done. The problem with simulated sex on stage is that either you sit there thinking “I know they’re not really doing it” or “My God, are they really doing it?”. It’s impossible to recreate truthfully, not least because as in real life the woman has an advantage – she can fake it more easily. For the man it is actually illegal to “rise to the occasion” on stage.

It’s clever that the scandal of the illicit liaison is seen as a slap in the face to the Tory’s ill fated “family values” agenda, and the idea of the miners getting fucked by the government as the literal copulation carries on is poignant. But in other ways the updating doesn’t work so well. What caused a sensation when Lawrence wrote the book is much, much less shocking now, or even in the 80’s. Even so, this is one of the most professional shows I’ve seen all week, and has some damn good acting in it. And don’t be put off by the length – there’s an interval.