The Clandestine Marriage
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, December 3, 1999
The Clandestine Marriage is a silly, slightly vapid, occasionally bizarre, but still quite amiable Restoration comedy starring Joan Collins, Nigel Hawthorne, and Timothy Spall, adapted from the stage play by the elder George Coleman and David Garrick. Using just the one location - Lord Neidpath's handsome Stanway House in the Cotswolds - must have saved on cash, but the production nevertheless famously got into cash-related difficulties and was saved by the entrepreneurial grit of Miss Collins herself, who drummed up extra resources and is credited as associate producer, along with Nigel Hawthorne.
The performance Joan gives as the querulous Mrs Heidelberg is simply extraordinary, wearing a swept-back grey wig that suggests she has arrived at 180mph in a motorcycle side-car, and speaking in an unearthly, strangled voice that hints at a childhood upbringing divided between Ulan Bator and Swansea. She says "quality" as if to rhyme with "Scarlatti" and "family" to rhyme with "doolally".
Lots of game performances here, from sexy young names such as Tom Hollander and Natasha Little, and Nigel Hawthorne is splendid as ever. But they can't lighten the heavy weather of this stagey production.
