“I swapped my oyster for my oranges, didn’t I?” says Nell Gwynn. Ostensibly, she’s talking about her life first as a hawker of molluscs and then of fruit. But when the frisky Gemma Arterton adds a wink to the line, you understand she’s referring to quite a different sort of oyster. Jessica Swale's bawdy comedy-with-songs “Nell Gwynn” (first seen at the Globe Theatre last year) is full of double entendres like that, and they do a terrific job at creating a suitably knockabout Restoration setting to tell the story of the famous whore-turned-actress. Sex is never far from anyone’s mind in Nell’s world, and we see her make the most of her physical charms as she transforms into the most desired performer of the seventeenth century. But Swale makes sure that we also appreciate Nell’s steely nerve as she becomes the favourite mistress of Charles II (David Sturzaker) and has to fight her corner – making proto-feminist observations along the way – in the hornets’ nest of the royal court.Arterton holds it all together beautifully. She pouts, twirls, kicks her heels, slaps her thighs; and if she lacks a deeper vulnerability, she compensates with energy and high spirits. Christopher Luscombe’s production licks along with gusto, Nigel Hess’s Purcell-like songs hit every musical target, and Hugh Durrant’s set cleverly suggests a Restoration theatre.Their piece is also a love-letter to the stage, and there are scenes of backstage squabbling, company camaraderie, and dazzling egomania. Greg Haiste whips up a delightful diva-like storm as actor Ned Kynaston, whose livelihood as a female performer is threatened by the appearance of a real woman treading the boards.Sometimes the structure feels a bit ramshackle. Antagonists come and go; conflicts fade away; a long rehearsal-scene, with a sledgehammer parody of bad acting, feels like padding. Another current play, Steve Trafford’s delightful two-hander “The Restoration of Nell Gwyn” (playing at the Park Theatre until February 20) pastiches seventeenth-century language more colourfully and memorably. But there’s still more than enough fizz in Swale’s piece to pay handsome tribute to the greatest comic actress of Restoration theatre.“Nell Gwynn” is at the Apollo Theatre until April 30.
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