Written by Benjamin Rome Clark

Directed by Alex Bathe

Review by Hunter King

Tartan Tabletop have broken free from their mold of tabletop role-playing games and produced a brand new play, Mr. and Mrs. Beard at the Georgian House in New Town, Edinburgh. The play, as described by playwright Benjamin Rome Clark, combines three pillars of his identity: history, comedy, and homosexuality. The show itself is a period farce, set in 18th century Edinburgh about Mr. Francis Beard (Kennedy Thomson) and Mrs. Georgina Beard (Jade Hutchison) and their hijinks in hiding their illicit affairs from everyone but each other. 

The cast of 6 consist of Mr. and Mrs. Beard, their servants Sinclair (Niall Curran) and Nancy (Lauren McColgan), Francis’ Mother, the Lady Marjorie Beard (Ruth Canal), and an Italian visitor, Salvatore Orsini (Jimmy Kavanagh). This cast is small but mighty, each holding their own with each other and having distinct and fully observable personalities. Clark’s dialogue is snappy and constantly witty, but never holds back, giving each character moments in the limelight. 

Some characters are more campy and high energy, while others have a reservedness, which is mostly gone by the end of the play as things start to fall apart in the house of Beard. This is largely seen in the character of Sinclair, who starts as one of the most put together and practical characters, but has gone mad in a pursuit to overthrow Francis as the patriarch of the house. Curran tackles both the reserved butler caricature and the manic man at the end of his rope with ease. 

Canal is a force to be reckoned with, always entering the room with flair and gusto. Her painted face only accents her over-the-top reactions to all of the chaos that has taken place. It is clear that Canal’s personality is similar to Lady Beard’s, especially after the curtain call when she pointed a gun at all of us and told us to remain seated.

Kavanagh and Thomson both play their roles with unwavering conviction. It was clear they knew that their characters were meant to be larger than life, and they each delivered performances that were so large, I was surprised that they were allowed to be done in a historical building. Despite the lack of room in a small space, they delivered energetic and movement driven performances. At one point I halfway expected Thomson to attempt to run up the wall. 

Hutchison and McColgan mirror these performances, while staying quite funny, but bring in more humanity to their characters. It is through their eyes that the audience is able to see the actual struggle of being a Queer person in an unaccepting society. Luckily, these struggles are forgotten for a while as the play concludes with a happy ending that exudes the feelings of Queer joy, despite the hardships that are also on display. 

This leads me to my favourite part of the play. It was clear and undeniable that all of the actors had complete faith in the material. Everything was done with a sense of rigor and seriousness that made the show go even smoother over all, feeling like a well oiled machine. It is also worth noting Felicity Anderson-Moore’s costumes felt entirely period appropriate and added to the already immersive feeling production. Normally, when reviewers write of a flawless production, they actually mean a production that was very good, but in this case Mr. and Mrs. Beard was a flawless production because it genuinely had no flaws. This is easily one of the best pieces of Am-dram theatre that I have seen in Edinburgh, and I think that is largely because of Alex Bathe’s snappy and constantly moving direction, combined with Clark’s incredibly engaging script.

Mr. and Mrs. Beard is an absolute triumph. I can only hope that Tartan Tabletop will return to the house of Beard soon, perhaps this August, as this is the exact type of show that the Fringe is all about. 

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