Lope De Vega's 1613 comedy "La Dama Boba" is one of an estimated 1,800 to his name (431 of which have survived to the present day), and on this presentation seems like a viable variation on commedia del arte precepts - the plot rides on the highly-controlled marriage of a heiress to a vast fortune, and the challenges to that marriage due to her foolish nature and the multiple conniving plots of various suitors to her and her intellectual sister. I'm not entirely sure it utterly survives the weight of Van Badham's adaptation in which she's inserted her own highly laboured post-modern jokes about modern culture, herself and her work as an opinion writer on the Guardian and the nature of renaissance dialogue, nor that Kenneth Moraleda's production, which like most productions of comedies of this era imposes a style I'd call "broad panto" does it a lot of favours, but there are some pleasures in this, mostly relating to design and the right central performances from the central pair of lovers, Contessa Treffone as the titular fool Phynayah and Arkia Ashraf as the central wooer, and some nice goofing on the sidelines from Megan Wilding and Alfie Gledhill as the secondary characters who's sidenline wooing is appropriately riduculous.
Elsewhere it's over the top comedy that does a lot of nudging in the ribs to let you know just how hilarious it thinks itself - on occasion, it does almost get there but mostly it's pushing very hard and some performers in particular are not served well by this approach - it all feels a little desperate to please. Isabel Hudson's design has a nice surrealism and playfulness but, in particular in the second half when the plot seems to be reaching for something a bit more thoughtful, this feels desperate to be thought of as fluff, wheras instead it's like gorging on fairy floss ... too much turns the stomach a little.
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