This adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s 1871 book marks the bicentenary of his birth — a tribute that would probably have pleased him, since in his opinion Lady Anna was his best novel. For the rest of us, it’s rather less of a treat: it actually finds the author better known for the Barsetshire series on tryingly stodgy form.
Commissioned by the Trollope Society, written by Craig Baxter and directed by Colin Blumenau, Lady Anna: All At Sea tells a convoluted tale in which cash, class, respectability and romance intersect, but characterisation is thin. Trollope dashed off the story while on a voyage to Australia for the wedding of his son, who had turned Antipodean sheep farmer. This biographical detail is employed by Baxter as a framing device.
The sputtering engine of the action is a disputed will left by a perfidious and philandering earl that impels his widow to fight for her daughter Anna’s legitimacy and fortune against the rival claim of his young nephew, Frederic. A marriage of convenience would resolve matters, but Anna is already secretly engaged to a tailor, Daniel Twaite. Will love or money triumph? Not hard, of course, to guess, but that doesn’t stop Tim Frances as Trollope and his fellow shipboard passengers, repeatedly chewing over alternative endings during the linking scenes at sea.
Trollope’s novel unfolds in the 1830s, around the time of the Great Reform Act and although Baxter’s double narrative fudges the period setting, hints of political radicalism remain the play’s most stimulating aspect: Daniel labels the aristocracy “mastodons” and decries the way in which “England’s wealth” is squandered on “bright gowns for young lords and buttered toast for their midday breakfast”.
Blumenau’s production, on Libby Watson’s design of oversized volumes and spotted parchment, is amiable, if a little effortful, with perky, role-swapping performances from a cast led by Antonia Kinlay playing Anna as well as Mrs Trollope’s bright-eyed maid. It’s neatly done, but it doesn’t add up to much more than a bland, costume-drama rom-com.
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