HOW TO SUCCEED IN HISTORY
WITHOUT REALLY TELLING IT

Meet Lettice Douffet (Bobbi Randall), an eccentric tour guide at Fustian House, a drab Tudor mansion. Burdened with delivering its painfully dull history to visitors, she finds the plain facts intolerable. Instead, Lettice gradually begins to embellish wildly, weaving dramatic tales of intrigue, passion, and bloodshed that electrify her audiences but have no basis in history. Her theatrical imagination and love of grandeur transform the dreary house into a stage for her inventions. Yet her creativity, while entertaining, edges her toward trouble as her departures from fact grow bolder.

Meet Lotte Schoen (Linda Benning), the paper-pushing, by-the-book manager of Fustian House. Word gets back to Lotte that some of the better-informed tourists are seeing through Lettice’s tall tales and are writing letters to complain about the false legends. She secretly takes the tour and is appalled by the outright fiction that has become the majority of Lettice’s storytelling for patrons. Lotte calls Lettice into her office and shows her the handful of letters of complaint. Lettice counters with far more letters that rave thanks for sharing such fascinating “facts” that made the tour delightful. So which is more important — keeping facts, tedious as they are, accurate, or sending folks off with exciting tales that make them want to tell others about the tour so the home can be preserved?

What we have is a new Odd Couple, where the two, rather than being roommates, are employer and employee. Rather than the classic, “Can two divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?” we have “Can a flamboyant, theatrical docent and her stick-in-the-mud boss create a home tour without either losing their mind?” Watching this play out, with some interesting twists and turns, is a lot of fun.

After a run in provincial English theaters and then at London’s Globe Theatre for two years, Peter Shaffer’s comedy hit Broadway in 1990 with Margaret Tyzack and Maggie Smith, for whom the play was written. At Lamplighters, Ms. Benning does a nice job as the gruff and stuffy Lotte, but the show truly rests on the performance of Lettice, and Ms. Randall is superb in the role, especially for a community theatre production. With a memorization nightmare of flowery verbiage, Ms. Randall deftly rolled a few fumbles opening weekend into Lettice’s overt behavior, which is wonderfully reminiscent of Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket on the BBC’s Keeping Up Appearances.

Speaking of British comedies, this show falls decidedly in that category – not just because of its origin or the accents, but the nature of British humor (or humour, given the context). Much of the comedy is in wordplay, in status changes, and in what is appropriate or not. If you enjoy such programs, Lettice & Lovage is a good one; if that’s your, shall we say, cup of tea.

While director Melissa Malloy keeps the three-act script moving (Act II and III are presented together as one long-ish second act), and Ms. Randall pulls out all stops to make Lettice’s monologues interesting, the script cries out for editing. It would be brighter, livelier, and better-paced by cutting some descriptions and plot (a few times, I thought, “Get to the point and move on”), but the actresses are stuck with the task of having to say every word that Shaffer provides them. It’s not terrible at all; it just could move better with less and make all the same points.

Newcomer to the stage Ali Impey earns solid laughs both as Miss Farmer, Lotte’s awkwardly nervous assistant, and improvising as various other characters who stall the audience during set changes behind the closed curtain. Guyren Howe initially has little to shine with as the bland lawyer, Mr. Randolph, but when Lettice encourages him to let loose a little, Mr. Howe charms showing Randolph’s glee in getting to be anything more than a stuffy, by-the-book barrister.

One of Lamplighter’s charms is good taste in finding scripts that ran successfully in the past but which have not been seen locally in many years (or ever?) and giving them another chance to shine. Lettice & Lovage is such a show and this is a fine little production, worthy of a nice night out for some laughter and a feel-good tone.

photos by Daren Scott

Lettice & Lovage
Lamplighters Community Theatre, 5915 Severin Drive
Fri at 7:30; Sat at 2 (Sept. 6 & 20); Sat at 7:30 (Sept. 13); Sun at 2
ends on September 21, 2025
for tickets ($25-$30), call 619.303.5092​ or visit Lamplighters