Tons of Money At The Shaw Festival
The Shaw Festival’s laudable tradition of reviving forgotten comic gems from the so-called “mandate period” (Shaw’s long lifetime) continues with the 1922 farce Tons of Money by Will Evans and Valentine (the pseudonym of Archibald Thomas Peachey).
Alas, Tons of Money is not tons of funny. (Feel free to groan. It was a cheap shot.)
That’s surprising because director Eda Holmes showed a masterful touch when she directed The Apple Cart at Shaw in 2023.
If I’m interpreting her Director’s Note in the programme correctly, she took her cue for how to direct the play from a YouTube clip of co-author Will Evans performing a musical hall sketch in 1899, more than 20 years before he settled down to write farce.
That clip is well worth watching. Go to YouTube and search for “will evans 1899.” It is a display of comic acrobatics worthy of Cirque du Soleil. Holmes refers to him as a “clown” (which he was) and then mentions “the wonderful cast of clowns in this production.” She seems to have directed in that spirit, attempting to recreate where possible the acrobatics of Evans’ earlier sketch.
The problem is that Tons of Money is not a clown show. It is a farce.
Yes, farce requires a heightened sense of reality and benefits from a cast adept at physical comedy, but to be truly effective their performances must never cross the line into being utterly cartoonish.
It has been said that comedy is unusual people in real situations while farce is real people in unusual situations. And “real people in unusual situations” pretty much sums up the people we meet in Tons of Money.
Aubrey Allington (Mike Nadajewski) is a charming inventor whose fecund imagination has yet to yield a reliable income. He lives, mired in debt, way beyond his means with his equally charming wife, Louise (Julia Course) and their butler (Graeme Somerville) and maid (Marla McLean).
[At the performance I saw, McLean stepped in for an indisposed Course, giving a perfectly charming performance, despite having to carry a script for much of the show. The part of the maid was handled well by Cosette Derome.]
An unexpected inheritance from a relation in Mexico offers salvation, until they realize that it will all go to their creditors. Louise has an inspiration. Under the terms of the will, if Aubrey dies, the estate passes to a cousin who is believed to be dead.
So Aubrey fakes his death, by being blown to bits in his laboratory, and reappears as the cousin only to be glommed onto by Jean Everard (Lindsay Wu) who insists she is his wife. So to escape, poor Aubrey must die again, this time by drowning, and reincarnate as the local parson.
To further complicate matters, the butler has a larcenous streak and hatches a plot along the same lines, creating a second fake cousin (André Morin), who is perhaps the most successful farceur of the bunch. Hilarity ensues and I won’t give away the ending.
As Holmes says, she has a wonderful cast and they give it their all, but she has directed at such a fever pitch that laughs that should come naturally are smothered in shtick.
The gifted Nadajewski is called upon to do much of the heavy lifting in this regard, leaping over furniture and suffering all manner of indignities. It’s all too much, although it must be said that the sight gag that brings down the Act One curtain is alone worth the price of admission.
Despite my quibbles, Tons of Money does generate enough merriment to provide a perfectly acceptable two hour’s entertainment. I just couldn’t help feeling that less might have provided more.
Tons of Money continues at the Royal George Theatre through October 4, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Shaw Festival website.
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