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 The Theatreguide.London Review

In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others by streaming new shows, and various online archives preserve still more vintage productions. Even as things return to normal we continue to review the experience of watching live theatre onscreen.

Arms And The Man
Channel Four 1983 and YouTube  Summer 2025

George Bernard Shaw's lightest and fluffiest comedy was last staged in London's West End in 1983, and recorded that year for British television, the recording now available via YouTube.

Some of the play's charm and wit comes through, but more in spite of than because of a rather stolid and misdirected production.

The play drifts occasionally into serious criticism of war, class divisions and sexual politics. But it is at its core a parody of an easy target, the 'Ruritanian' romances of 19^th Century operetta, where all the men are military officers in shiny uniforms and all the women lovestruck virgins with ample bosoms.

It opens with provincial lass Raina mooning over the handsome and dashing Major Sergius, whose brave attack on enemy lines has made him hero of the day.

Bluntschli, an escaping enemy soldier, takes refuge in her home and shocks her with his very unromantic attitude toward war, along with the news that Sergius's attack was actually just a matter of a runaway horse.

The rest of the play is a series of romantic bubble-burstings, with Sergius proving to be a pompous fool, servants proving cleverer than their masters, and Bluntschli's matter-of-fact common sense proving superior to anyone else's pretensions.

Along the way there are a few serious moments displaying Shaw's signature ability to make the discussion of ideas dramatic – Bluntschli on war, a couple of servants on how to manipulate the class system, and a maid turning a would-be seduction into a business deal.

But on the whole the tone is kept light, enjoying life's absurdities rather than being upset by them. And it is exactly that lightness that director Jonathan Lynn seems to have missed entirely in this stodgy and rhythm less production.

A play that should dance along on its clever lines and its delight in poking fun plods as spiritlessly as the foot-soldiers Bluntschli describes.

As Bluntschli, TV sitcom star Richard Briers uses his familiar mildly-amused-by-life persona to let his sharpest lines slip in almost unnoticed, but one senses after a while that Bluntschli should at least occasionally be a lot angrier than Briers lets him be.

In the rest of the cast only Peter Egan seems to have any awareness that he's in a comedy, though only by overplaying Sergius as a generic upper-class twit.

Anna Nygh gives the uppity maid some sexy energy but Alice Krige is all-but-invisible as Raina.

Judging from the YouTube viewers' comments, some of the audience for this recording are schoolkids assigned the task of reading the play. They'll get a plot summary that may help them in class, but no real sense of the play's charm or Shaw's wit.

Gerald Berkowitz