“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” There are few more famous first lines in English literature than the opening confession of would-be writer 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain in Dodie Smith’s 1948 novel I Capture the Castle.
The Mortmains are bohemians living in genteel poverty in a crumbling Suffolk castle. Dad James is a blocked writer, and stepmother Topaz an artists’ model who favours dancing naked in the rain. Eldest daughter Rose is tired of poverty and dreams of having an endless supply of peach-coloured towels.
Smith’s first line remains intact, as does the beating, yearning heart of the novel in Teresa Howard and Steven Edis’s musical, which is clearly a labour of love, treating its source material with affection and care. Howard’s book captures Cassandra’s shrewd yet innocent narrative voice and the production is helped enormously by a delightful performance, all foal-like gawkiness and sharp-eyed observation, from newcomer Lowri Izzard in the lead role.
Howard’s lyrics are often witty, too: “He’s a sculptured Donatello / He’s a new song by Novello” sings the cougar-like photographer Leda (Shona White) about Stephen (Isaac Stanmore), the castle gardener who suffers unrequited love for Cassandra. This is a piece in which almost everyone is in love with the wrong person. Edis’s music seldom has an earworm catchiness, but it borrows with magpie smartness from the sounds of the 1930s and billows and aches with romantic feeling while largely avoiding the sentimental. Some feat.
There is such a lot to like here, from Ti Green’s brilliant design, in which the crumbling castle for which the Mortmains cannot raise the rent, is constructed out of chairs and ladders like a gothic Ikea, to Shona Morris’s movement, which comes into its own during Cassandra’s desperate journey to London.
Aspects still need work: the rich American brothers Neil (Luke Dale) and Simon (Theo Boyce), the latter the heir to the local hall and the man at whom Rose sets her cap, are dull as ditchwater. But then, they are in the book, too. Ben Watson’s father doesn’t quite have the right comic tone, and Kate Batter has a thankless task as Rose, whose desperation turns to gold-digging and back to desperation again.
I can’t help wondering if this show might have missed its moment as a stage adaptation, particularly as its bohemian middle-class sensibility and absurd romantic flamboyance is magnified in the theatre in a way that doesn’t happen on the page: its characters seem a mite irritating, and the scenario quaint. There were times when I was irresistibly reminded of the Twitter account, book and TV show Very British Problems. Yet there were moments when the production made me well up. Most noticeably on Cassandra’s birthday, when Stephen’s hard-worked for present is overlooked in favour of one from wealthy Simon. For all its flaws, this old-fashioned show is full of integrity and will bring pleasure to thousands who love the novel. Including me.
• At Watford Palace until 22 April. Box office: 01923 225671. Then touring to Octagon, Bolton, and Oxford Playhouse.
