Tim Luscombe
Northanger Abbey
Location: Many productions in many countries.
Date: 2006
Northanger Abbey was the second novel I adapted (after Noel Coward’s Pomp and Circumstance, which, rightly, has never been produced), and it turned out to be the most successful. First produced by York Theatre Royal in 2004, it’s had many amateur revivals since, and four professional ones: at Salisbury Playhouse in 2007 (followed by a tour), at the Theatre By The Lake in Keswick (2010), in Chicago at the Remy Bumppo theatre (2013) and at Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds (2017). The first, and for me the definitive Catherine Morland, was Jenni Maitland, seen above imploring God and Colin Faulkner’s lovely arches.
Tim Luscombe, who directs his own adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey, at Salisbury Playhouse, has risen to the challenge of staging the play with only eight actors. It is all immensely entertaining.
West Wiltshire Gazette
Catherine’s ‘fancy has trespassed’, declares Henry Tilney. And indeed it has, with far too much Udolpho. But what a delight Tim Luscombe’s slick production is…
Salisbury Journal
Full credit to adaptor and director Tim Luscombe. His giddy, headlong production takes its tone from the heroine’s impatience.
The Guardian