Sunday Telegraph, August 4,1991, by John Gross.
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The play's the thing. At least, it ought to be; and when it 
is, we want our actors to be just actors, not stars. We go 
to "Macbeth" (or should) in order to see "Macbeth" first and 
whoever happens to be playing Macbeth second. But when the 
play is not much of a thing to start with, an injection of 
star quality may be the only solution.

Jacques Deval's "Tovarich," at the Chichester Festival 
Theatre, is a sentimental comedy about White Russian 
grandees who have taken refuge in Paris after the Revolution 
and are reduced to working as domestic servants. It enjoyed 
considerable success in the 1930s (there was a film with 
Claudette Colbert and Charles Boyer) and in its best scenes 
it still retains a good deal of sparkle. But it is no 
masterpiece, and there were moments when I could not help 
wondering what it would have been like without Natalia 
Makarova as the Grand Duchess Tatiana.

At the best, I suspect, fairly flat; possibly even a bit 
off-putting. But fortunately there is no need to entertain 
such drab possibilities. Not while we can watch Makarova 
herself - smiling enchantingly, moving beautifully (of 
course), performing delicious little pirouettes with the 
English language. Acting well, too, with just the right hint 
of the grand manner as she goes about her chores. 

Robert Powell as her husband, Prince Mikhail, cannot quite 
match her, but he plays a very effective second fiddle. Even 
so, the opening scene, which shows them camping out in a 
shabby hotel, is rather slow. It is only when they decide to 
follow the example of such illustrious compatriots as the 
former Grand Admiral who is now a cab-driver ("He kills more 
people with his taxi than he ever did with his battleship") 
that things hot up. 

They apply for the posts of butler and maid under assumed 
names, writing references for themselves over their real 
ones. Their prospective employers, who agree to take them 
on, are a plump banker, who is also - for strictly 
professional reasons - a Socialist deputy, and his pampered 
wife, who drifts around humming tunes from "The Merry 
Widow."

The scene is set for a excellent little comedy of manners. 
At first neither the banker nor his wife suspects anything 
odd. But "savoir faire" will out: the new servants carry out 
their orders diligently, but in spite of themselves they 
establish their social superiority too.

Among the many entertaining incidents, the best is the one 
where the Prince/butler cures the banker of a headache with 
an explosive Russian cocktail. Here as elsewhere Rowland 
Davies as the banker gives a splendid performance. His 
blusterings and blunderings are the standard fare of farce, 
but farce executed to perfection.

In the second half, alas, the play turns semi-serious and 
very silly. A Bolshevik commissar (Tony Britton with a white 
beard) comes to dinner and immediately recognises who the 
maid and butler really are. There are bitter recriminations 
in the kitchen, followed by a reconciliation - a complicated 
affair involving a Tsarist bank account - for the sake of 
Russia itself.

Given the horrendous things we are told that the commissar 
has done, with Tatiana and Mikhail among his direct victims, 
this is implausible to the point of being distasteful. And 
once the spell is broken, we also start wondering whether we 
should be quite as sentimental about Tsarist courtiers as 
the play invites us to be.

Still, the production ends with a flourish; the Prince and 
the Grand Duchess setting off for a White Russian party in 
full regalia, the Grand Duchess (who is still a maid) taking 
out the empty milk-bottles as she goes. It is a fairy-tale 
finale, even if the fairy-tale touch has not been maintained 
throughout.



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