What’s a little bit of thunder and lightning between friends?

Apparently, nothing if it’s between the cast of the Changeling Theatre’s summer tour and their audience writes Angela Cole.

In the second half of a performance of the School for Scandal at Great Comp Garden, near Borough Green, the addition of several shocking lightning bolts and thunder claps even had the audience gasping… yet the cast continued as though nothing was happening.

At one point, a huge bolt of lightning even snaked its way down directly in the centre of the sky behind the stage – it was a spectacular sight and the audience cooed in unison “Oooh” but not one of the cast even flinched.

It was an impressive spectacle of professionalism from the troupe who have been performing open air shows across the county and beyond since the beginning of this month.

They are staging two shows – Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and the School for Scandal, a comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and first performed in 1777.

The latter is an extravagant explosion of gossip and glamour, a crazy concoction of lavish overacting and fabulous flirtation.

The costumes are lavish – this is an 18th century play so look out for wigs aplenty – and the staging is equally lively, the Changeling’s trademark energy of its young, exuberant cast shining through.

However, it’s a twisting and turning plot; I have to be honest, I found it hard to follow. I should have read up on the synopsis in the programme which speaks for itself in that it almost goes off the page there’s so much of it!

Having seen both shows, I felt there were a few more laughs in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, but it was an entertaining evening of superb acting and over and above the-show-must-go-on attitude.

The final show of this year’s tour is on Sunday, August 20 at Boughton Monchelsea Place in Maidstone. For tickets click here

Shakespeare and the crazy cossacks: Click here to read our other review of Changeling Theatre’s other summer show