Quality Street at Richmond Theatre

Quality Street just had so much going for it; it was written by JM Barrie, it was produced by Northern Broadsides, it was on at Richmond Theatre and it had a box of chocolates named after it.

To elaborate a little. JM Barrie is most famous for Peter Pan but he also wrote the plays Mary Rose and Dear Brutus which I had seen and loved. I had also seen some other Northern Broadsides productions and had loved those too.

All that meant that it was an easy decision to book my usual seat, Dress Circle A25, for a fair £31.

At its heart, Quality Street, is a will-they, won't they love story set in Napoleon England. And as with all such stories, it is the missed opportunities and misunderstandings blocking the apparent path of true love that create the drama.

There was a particularly unusual aspect to one of these misunderstandings that gave the story a nice twist.

Another nice part of the story was the use of a current day Quality Street chocolates production team to frame the story. It also helped to explain the connection between the chocolates and the play which might otherwise have been an unsatisfactory confusion.

There was plenty of humour in the story too including nosey neighbours and love struck young soldiers.

The cast of nine, some playing multiple parts, was superb at both the high drama and the humour.

Everything about Quality Street was what I hoped for and it was a thoroughly entertaining afternoon.