Assistant Director Ed Madden keeps us up to date with the latest from The Rivals rehearsal room, ahead of the production opening at Bristol Old Vic on Fri 9 Sep.

Week 1

"We want the production to reflect something of the swaggering, rough, exuberant, sexy feel of the world in which the play is set; to shake off the genteel stereotypes of television adaptations of Austen in favour of a bolder take."
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Week 2

"This is a play of feigned and mistaken identities, in which characters often share their feelings and secrets not with one another but with the audience; personalities are riotously eccentric and knowingly over-the-top, but there needs to be enough truth in them for audiences to care about what happens." 
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Week 3

"As scripts start to be put down, so our sense of the physicality of these characters increases: Lee Mengo making the spirited Bob Acres a puffed-up firecracker, Lucy Briggs-Owen all flutter and flurry as giddy Lydia Languish."
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Week 4

"Jonathan Howell of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School arrived midweek to teach us about the etiquette of duelling with swords and pistols, and to choreograph some neat moments of action."
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Week 5

"Dominic (Hill, the Director) has filled the show with little moments; flourishes of social precision that help the play feel full and rich. I think it’s these moments which help us keep Sheridan’s comedy the right side of pantomimic - funny, wild and silly, but with a foot planted in reality."
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