There’s a moment near the beginning of Isobel McArthur’s updating of Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West where a character picks up a copy of Heywood’s original text and points out that nothing you will see on stage tonight will ever change it, and he places it down out of harm’s way. For all you purists out there, be assured that the original remains safe and sound, ready to be performed on another day as its author intended, for time immemorial. And that’s a good lesson to learn where it comes to modernised versions of plays written centuries ago. But it does lead on to the question, where does a quirky modernised adaptation end and completely taking leave of your senses begin?

Mind you, I do believe that there’s no point doing a cover version of a song unless you’re going to make it your own. Why go to all the bother just to emulate the way it was first recorded? You may as well simply enjoy the original. Isobel McArthur ran with that concept with the immensely successful Pride and Prejudice* (*Sort of), and now she’s done it again with a work that isn’t so well known as the Jane Austen, so has taken all the liberties with it that a free rein will allow.

Strictly speaking, the show starts in the Swan Bar, half an hour before Curtain Up, where three talented musicians armed with their instruments and a tankard of ale, recreate a true pub atmosphere – and we’re talking spit and sawdust here, rather than gastropub. They are joined by members of the cast who contribute an appropriate karaoke number, and by the time you take your seats in the theatre you feel really warmed up by the whole process. So do make sure you don’t miss this additional element to the show.

Designer Ana Inés Jabares-Pita has done wonders recreating three different types of pub establishment for the three main scenes of the production. You can almost smell the stale slops of Mild in the opening Plymouth scene; a warmer, smarter experience awaits us in the Cornwall pub; and by the time we get to the Spanish taberna you’re salivating for Jamón ibérico y Pedro Ximénez. It’s very much a production that appeals to all the senses.

The story is fairly straightforward. Set in time of war with Spain, landlady Liz rejects a marriage proposal from Spencer – rich, but a drip and she barely knows him – and before you know it, a pub brawl has ended in murder and Liz has set up an empty pub in Cornwall belonging to her unsuitable suitor. Seeking to make it a quality establishment offering the best of experience all round, she engages various staff and helpers including Spencer, and an abundance of auditionees for the posts of pub entertainers. While Spencer is temporarily in Spain as a medical apprentice, word comes back that he has been killed. Unexpectedly grief-stricken, Liz decides to privateer it to Spain to bring back his body for a proper burial. However, an unexpected encounter with the King of Spain and his favourite, Duke de Lerma, brings a surprise denouement and a Happy Ever After. An everyday tale of simple folk, in fact.

If you’re looking for out-and-out humour, look no further. There is so much to laugh at in this show, from a pretentious postman, recidivist rodents, a foppish king, knowing use of pentameter, outrageous anachronism of music, a stompy ballerina, a barbershop quartet… the list is genuinely endless. So much has been thrown at this show that inevitably whilst most of it lands, some of it pays the price of excessive excess. A quick example: incorporating the ever-popular Y Viva España as the theme to their sea crossing to Spain is comic genius – job done. Following it up with an unnecessary second verse “lays it on with a trowel” and reduces its impact.

Perhaps a surprising element us how the show plays with xenophobic stereotypes. The opening scene has a pub patron sounding off about the Spanish with sentiments that might have been written by Kelvin Mackenzie; he may just as well have added a Gotcha! for balance. This nationalism is beautifully turned on its head when our band of merry men and women arrive in Spain, where readers of El Sol say the same about the English. There is a hilarious scene where the King and Duke deride English traits and it hits home to the audience that you shouldn’t give it if you can’t take it.

However, the chief feel of the show is bonkers fun, with the emphasis on the bonkers. The cast chuck themselves into it with total relish and it gains strength from its superb ensemble feel. Amber James’ dominant characterisation of Liz sometimes feels like T S Eliot’s still point of the turning world (pretentious moi?) as the lone voice of practicality whilst madness ensues all around her – at least until she decides to make a ship out of bits of wood ripped from the bar counter. She is splendidly matched by Philip Labey’s idealistic lovelorn Spencer who quickly realises that empty gestures don’t get the girl.

Tom Babbage’s Windbag the postman is a delight, full of pretentious pontifications about all the things he’s done, none of which we believe, until the scene changes to Spain and we think again. Emmy Stonelake is excellent as Liz’s child sidekick Clem – a barrelful of half energy, half scorn. There are also outstanding characterisations from Matthew Woodyatt as the low-esteemed Bardolf, David Rankine as the effete King of Spain and Tommy the busker (who offered to show us to our seats for twenty quid), and Marc Giro as the Duke and a singing Guy Fawkes. But the entire cast and musicians contribute their all to making it a pretty mind-blowing experience.

There are moments of excess where a little trimming, and repeating the mantra less is more, might have made the show a little more digestible at times, but there’s no denying its heart and the commitment of everyone involved. Believe me – you will laugh a lot, and that’s its priority.

Production photos by Ali Wright @ RSC

Four They’re Jolly Good Fellows!