BWW Reviews: TRISTRAM SHANDY: CONCEPTION, COCK AND BULL, St James Theatre, June 9 2014

Like Ulysses, Tristram Shandy is one of those books that everyone has heard of and nobody has read - fortunately, unlike James Joyce's tome, fellow Irishman Laurence Sterne's novel is rather more accessible and much more fun.

It's even more accessible in this adaptation by Stephen Oxley, who, bewigged as befits a man born in 1718, becomes Tristram, as he tells us (eventually) of his birth and baptism. Oxley is warmly conversational, stepping into the audience, as the centuries slide away and the beautifully constructed prose rolls around the room.

Sterne is often cited as the father of modern novel and it's not hard to see why. There's enormous fun to be had picking out the comedy techniques as the tales flow: there's some digression of the kind that Ronnie Corbett used when sitting in that big chair; now a comic description, that suggests Dickens (or even Wodehouse) in its eye for detail; and a schoolboyish delight in the breaking of taboos about sex and unfortunate genital injuries.

Most satisfying of all the pleasures of this delightful 90 minutes is the sheer joy of listening to the precision of Sterne's language spoken so well by a fine actor revelling in its possibilities. There's plenty of amusing pantomiming - and no wooden chest deserves to be treated like that, Mr Oxley! - but it's hardly needed. Just let the words sweep you along - and wonder at the infinite variety of the English tongue.

Tristram Shandy: Conception, c*ckand Bull continues at St James Theatre until 14 June with all profits going to St Andrew's Youth Club.

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