By Megan
Link to 3pm show on May 1st: https://originaltheatreonline.com/productions/23/being-mr-wickham-live-streaming-saturday-1-may-at-3pm-bst
Link to 7.30pm show on May 1st: https://originaltheatreonline.com/productions/24/being-mr-wickham-live-streaming-saturday-1-may-at-730pm-bst
Link to captioned 7.30pm show on May 1st: https://originaltheatreonline.com/productions/25/being-mr-wickham-live-streaming-saturday-1-may-at-730pm-captioned-bst
Available until: This show can only be watched live at the above times. There will be a different Q&A after every show.
Being Mr Wickham was inspired by a very popular TV series of Pride and Prejudice which was first on TV in 1995. It was Colin Firth who played Mr Darcy who got most of the attention but most people agreed it was a very good series.
It had a really good cast including actors who were already stars like Alison Steadman and Julia Sawalha who played Mrs Bennet and her youngest daughter Lydia. It also started off the careers of actors including Emilia Fox who played Georgiana Darcy and went to star in lots of TV series and films including Silent Witness, and Victoria Hamilton who had a tiny role as Mrs Forster but she is very well-known now and she starred in Albion at the Almeida Theatre which was on iPlayer during lockdown.
Another actor in the cast was Adrian Lukis who played Mr Wickham. Mr Wickham is a soldier in the militia who is very charming and everyone likes him but it turns out he grew up with the hero Mr Darcy – and Mr Darcy knows a lot of things about Mr Wickham which aren’t very good.
Mr Lukis returns to the role of Mr Wickham for Being Mr Wickham, which he also co-wrote. I think it is really lovely that he is still thinking about a character he played in 1995 and that he is so interested on how his life might have gone on after the end of the book. Actors play so many different roles so they probably don’t spend time thinking a lot about all of them and some of them want to move away from roles in their most popular shows because they do not want to be typecast so if Mr Lukis is thinking this much about Mr Wickham, that shows how special the role is to him.
Jane Austen does write a few things in the last chapter about a lot of the characters including Mr Wickham but there are lots of different ways you could interpret it. Mr Lukis and his co-writer Catherine Curzon haven’t really changed anything Jane Austen wrote but they have made a few decisions so things aren’t always as you expect them to be. I really like that because it means the play has surprises and even though they are surprises, they are all nice surprises and believable surprises.
Mr Wickham hasn’t turned into a completely good man or anything like that. He still says a few things which I am a little bit suspicious of, like about what he was thinking when he was in Brighton with Lydia. I do actually believe he did think that but I don’t think that was his main reason for doing what he did. I think it’s more like the thing he felt okay about saying. I think Mr Wickham likes to have fun but he doesn’t seem like the sort of person who doesn’t care if people like him or not. I think he really wants people to like him and he seemed to be like that in Being Mr Wickham too.
Being Mr Wickham is set on Mr Wickham’s 60th birthday. He is still married and it is interesting hearing about his marriage and his children. It is a monologue so you don’t see the other characters (though you do hear someone speaking from offstage) but he talks a lot about the characters in Pride and Prejudice and what his relationship with them is like now. This is a bit of a spoiler but I was really happy to hear that one of the characters is still alive. I think they usually aren’t alive in the sequels and I don’t understand why because they are a brilliant character.
The writing isn’t anything like Jane Austen but I think that is a good thing. Only one person can write like Jane Austen and I think writers are better at their own style than other people’s. The writing is really good. I like the way Mr Lukis and Ms Curzon show Mr Wickham’s character. Mr Wickham tells his stories in a really interesting way and I really like all the humour and the bits where he is maybe not telling the whole truth. I like the information about the other characters too. It is interesting and it made me smile a lot.
I don’t know how much someone who does not know Pride and Prejudice would enjoy Being Mr Wickham. It is an interesting story but Mr Wickham mentions a lot of things which happen in the book without explaining exactly what happened so it might be a bit confusing. But I might be wrong. I can’t really know what it would be like for people who haven’t read the book.
Pride and Prejudice is a really good book. I think there is a lot I don’t understand yet but my mum says she understands more every time she reads it. My favourite characters are Jane Bennet, Mr Bingley and Georgiana Darcy because they are really nice people (but I do like Mr Darcy and Elizabeth too) but I think Mr Wickham is one of my favourites too now. He did bad things when he was young but he seems really nice when he is sixty and he is really interesting. Mr Lukis put in a bit about how Mr Wickham really loves Lord Byron and I really like that because it makes him seem even more like a human being in a way to know about the things he loves. I haven’t read any Byron yet but maybe I will when I am older. I wonder if he has seen Don Giovanni.
Being Mr Wickham is really good and I enjoyed the
Q&A afterwards too.
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