The Roaring Girl, by Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton, Royal Shakespeare Company (Swan Theatre)

Sex, deceit, cross-dressing, and class reversals. They sound like the ingredients of an exclusive Dalston warehouse party. They’re not. They’re the themes that underpin one of Jacobean theatre’s least appreciated genres: the city comedy. Everyone celebrates Shakespeare’s timeless romances and his contemporaries’ violent revenge tragedies but most people forget the knavish city comedies.

Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl is currently getting a rare revival at the Royal Shakespeare Company’s intimate Swan Theatre. Featuring a cross-section of contemporary urban characters, it is a pertinent insight into the struggles that continue to define city culture 400 years later.

It’s also incredibly radical. Led by a cross-dressing androgynous female lead, the play’s sexual politics and stinging satire of chauvinistic behavior would raise eyebrows in 2014. Imagine what they thought in 1611.

Wealthy Sebastian wants to marry humble Mary Fitz-Allard but his father Sir Sebastian doesn’t approve of the match. He begins to court the infamous Moll Cutpurse in order to lower his father’s expectations and ensure that he subsequently understands Mary's multiple virtues. Several interconnected sub-plots are weaved around a similar theme: rich men seek to cuckold working-men. The wives rebel and mock the follies of men. It could be an episode of a primetime ITV comedy.

Moll is an intriguing feminist figure. Eschewing marriage in favour of her mental health, she runs rings around the male characters and is frank in her criticism of the opposite sex. Lisa Dillon plays her as an east-end cockney rockstar who infatuates and terrifies men in equal measure.  

Director Jo Davies has relocated the action to late Victorian London with mixed results. Although the play’s resonate with Dickensian London, they are arguably more relevant today. Likewise, the play’s revolutionary notion of a man in trousers would have been interesting to see in a contemporary Jacobean staging. Victorian London provides a glamorous backdrop but doesn’t add much to the staging.

There are strong performances throughout the ensemble.  Most of the cast also appearing in The White Devil and Arden of Faversham at the Swan Theatre this season and this production is a testament to the RSC’s continued commitment to repertory theatre. 

Not everything in this bold and energetic production works. Some of the musical interludes and choreographed dance sequences feel awkward and desperate. Sometimes the cast and Davies are trying too hard to make the play entertaining. It’s like grimacing through an exuberantly told bad joke.

Overall, this is another example of the RSC’s bold programming under new artist director Gregory Doran. The company have been staging a bold mix of plays since moving into their new home in Stratford-upon-Avon. This ‘Roaring Girls’ season is highlighting some previously under-discussed issues in Jacobean society. With eye-catching revivals of Ben Jonson’s Volpone and Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday coming up next year, this is an exciting time for the RSC. Let’s hope it continues.