A Wee Touch of Class ****
Edinburgh Evening News Monday 4th August 2008

Thom Dibdin

It takes a brave theatre company to succeed in staging a Rikki Fulton comedy. What looks so easy – the asides to the audience and pieces of inspired nonsense – are notoriously hard to pull off successfully.

There is a secret to making it work, as Leitheatre demonstrate in this laugh-out-loud production of Fulton's free adaptation of Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

Under Alex Purves and Matt Mason's comfortable direction, they are both bold and simple.

Leading from the top is Don Arnott as Archibald Jenner, a nouveau riche resident of Edinburgh's newly built New Town. Having made it financially, he wants to better himself and his family socially. His daughter Alison must marry nobility but his wife Clementina should spend time with the in-laws while he takes a lover.

Arnott plays the buffoon as near straight as you could want. You believe his naivety as a succession of upper-crust chancers appear to give him lessons in everything from dancing to philosophy. For a price, of course.

Dorsay Larnach, Mike Paton, Debra Barrie and Phyllis Ross, all keep it simple. They allow the humour to flow from the basic physical comedy of Arnott's bumbling attempts to imitate their supposedly-graceful actions.

The biggest charlatan of them all is Lord Fordell (Lee Shedden). He plays Jenner for a fool, dressing him up in the latest fashions and sponging from him.

It's in the language that the big laughs come. While the toffs talk in faux French and plum-in-the-mouth English accents, Jenner and his family speak pure Scots.

Which allows for plenty of translation slip-ups and, best of all, full-flowing vocabulary of a very coarse nature. Great fun.