Educating Agnes - Perth Theatre

Educating Agnes is a new play from Liz Lochhead who has adapted Moliere’s School for Wives into rhyming Scots.    It is a knockabout farce, and very well tackled by Graham MacLaren and his team from Theatre Babel.

The story is fairly simple:   Old git Arnolphe (Kevin McMonagle) has been keeping his ward, Agnes (Anneika Rose) out of harm’s way until she is old enough to marry him - so he thinks.   But of course things don’t work out that way at all, and Agnes has her eye on a suitor Horace (John Kielty).   

There is a huge amount of fun:    the language is mostly archaic Scots, but Liz Lochhead throws in modern words and phrases occasionally to great comic effect, and to underline that this story does not just belong in the age in which it is set.    The actors are on top form and the stagings are excellently timed.   Two servants, played deadpan by Maureen Carr and Lewis Howden add lots to the comedy, but it is really McMonagle’s show, and he turns out a great performance.

Well worth catching.