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Writer: P.D. James
Adaptors: Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff
Cast: Joe Bence, James Bye, Todd Boyce, Jamie-Rose Duke, Sarah Berger, Sean Rigby, Celia Cruwys-Finnigan, Louise Faulkner, Paul Jerricho, Mogali Masuku, Sam Woodhams
Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle
Producer: The Mill at Sonning and Studio RA
Running time: approximately two hours, 30 minutes, including interval
“Jane Austen wrote six novels, pretty much all about the same sort of thing,” declares the programme note to P.D. James’ artful sequel to possibly the most popular of the six (or seven, if you count the unfinished “Sanditon”).
For me, that ignores the almost infinite nuances Jane Austen finds in ostensibly narrow subject-matter. It would be fairer to accuse P.D. James of always tending to write “about the same sort of thing,” in her case for a sound, commercial reason: along with the happy endings of romance, the tidy resolutions of conventional detective fiction have enduring appeal as an escape from the messy uncertainty of life.
Drawing on those twin obsessions, “Death Comes to Pemberley” is a safe choice for the first national tour of The Mill at Sonning, distinguished as being one of the country’s few dinner theatres, in the year that marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Britain’s most brilliant female novelist.
Adding to the mass appeal, James Bye, of EastEnders fame, is a dashing Darcy and Jamie-Rose Duke is a lithe Elizabeth, even if, as P.D. James’s older, married, mistress of a stately home, she has lost the sparkle of her early years.
The closest we get to reviving the electricity that Austen’s Elizabeth could generate is in the scene when Duke washes blood off the suspected Wickham, played by Sam Woodhams. Rather than Darcy, he is the man in this production to appear without his shirt.
For Elizabeth, being anywhere near Wickham, especially shirtless, is an act of defiance as she demonstrates the spirit and resistance to male authority required when taming the masterful, conservative Darcy is an ongoing process.
Woodhams, in a cunning piece of doubling, is also Will Bidwell, the dying son of the Darcy’s long-standing servants. He adds Dickensian sentimentality as well as holding the key to the murder plot that is James’ strongest suit.
The pedestrian love affair she crafts between Georgiana (Celia Cruwys-Finnigan) and Alveston, played adeptly by understudy Joe Bence, can never hold a candle to the wit, irony and magnetism that, in Austen’s hands, unite the original Darcy and Elizabeth.
David Osmond, also musical director, who was to have played Alveston, would have perhaps add a dimension to a connection based on shared musicality.
The production’s unlikely hit, responsible for nearly all the comedy, is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, played with aplomb by Sarah Berger.
Credit also goes to Sean Cavanagh’s set for managing, in this world premiere stage adaptation of P.D. James’ 2011 novel, to convey us to the high-ceilinged splendour and rolling landscape of the Pemberley estate.
Death Comes to Pemberley
Theatre Royal Windsor and touring until September
Writer: P.D. James
Adaptors: Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff
Cast: Joe Bence, James Bye, Todd Boyce, Jamie-Rose Duke, Sarah Berger, Sean Rigby, Celia Cruwys-Finnigan, Louise Faulkner, Paul Jerricho, Mogali Masuku, Sam Woodhams
Directed by Jonathan O’Boyle
Producer: The Mill at Sonning and Studio RA
Running time: approximately two hours, 30 minutes, including interval
“Jane Austen wrote six novels, pretty much all about the same sort of thing,” declares the programme note to P.D. James’ artful sequel to possibly the most popular of the six (or seven, if you count the unfinished “Sanditon”).
For me, that ignores the almost infinite nuances Jane Austen finds in ostensibly narrow subject-matter. It would be fairer to accuse P.D. James of always tending to write “about the same sort of thing,” in her case for a sound, commercial reason: along with the happy endings of romance, the tidy resolutions of conventional detective fiction have enduring appeal as an escape from the messy uncertainty of life.
Drawing on those twin obsessions, “Death Comes to Pemberley” is a safe choice for the first national tour of The Mill at Sonning, distinguished as being one of the country’s few dinner theatres, in the year that marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Britain’s most brilliant female novelist.
Adding to the mass appeal, James Bye, of EastEnders fame, is a dashing Darcy and Jamie-Rose Duke is a lithe Elizabeth, even if, as P.D. James’s older, married, mistress of a stately home, she has lost the sparkle of her early years.
The closest we get to reviving the electricity that Austen’s Elizabeth could generate is in the scene when Duke washes blood off the suspected Wickham, played by Sam Woodhams. Rather than Darcy, he is the man in this production to appear without his shirt.
For Elizabeth, being anywhere near Wickham, especially shirtless, is an act of defiance as she demonstrates the spirit and resistance to male authority required when taming the masterful, conservative Darcy is an ongoing process.
Woodhams, in a cunning piece of doubling, is also Will Bidwell, the dying son of the Darcy’s long-standing servants. He adds Dickensian sentimentality as well as holding the key to the murder plot that is James’ strongest suit.
The pedestrian love affair she crafts between Georgiana (Celia Cruwys-Finnigan) and Alveston, played adeptly by understudy Joe Bence, can never hold a candle to the wit, irony and magnetism that, in Austen’s hands, unite the original Darcy and Elizabeth.
David Osmond, also musical director, who was to have played Alveston, would have perhaps add a dimension to a connection based on shared musicality.
The production’s unlikely hit, responsible for nearly all the comedy, is Lady Catherine de Bourgh, played with aplomb by Sarah Berger.
Credit also goes to Sean Cavanagh’s set for managing, in this world premiere stage adaptation of P.D. James’ 2011 novel, to convey us to the high-ceilinged splendour and rolling landscape of the Pemberley estate.
Barbara Lewis © 2025.
By Barbara Lewis • authors, books, literature, plays, theatre, year 2025 • Tags: authors, Barbara Lewis, books, literature, plays, theatre