Jane Austen wrote 736 other novels no one knows about.

The audience were invited before the show to suggest what the title of one of these novels might be. At this particular show it was The Glorious Grapefruit And Other Recipes.

The three men and three women on stage then improvised the story over one and a half hours, with the help of a lone violinist.

Pretension and the conspicuous effort to impress were at the heart of Austen's humour.

Sadly these actors did not have the sophistication to develop the concept further. It was simply a romp in Pythonesque fashion, delivered with little comedy timing and even less stage craft. The show therefore had little to do with Jane Austen but a lot in common with a bad school production.

Lines were mumbled, actors talked to each other and never the audience, the costumes were drab and the performance energy flat.

Totally improvised?

Other than the title suggestion there was no other input from the audience to suggest that to be the case.

The standard improvisation tricks were there such referring to things not yet invented, pranks with invisible props, the actors mock corpsing at their “spontaneous wit”.

This was exactly the kind of entertainment that Austen herself would have found ostentatious.

Two stars