RICHARD Brinsley Sheridan’s 18th century high-society comedy The School For Scandal is undergoing a refit in a trendy 1960s bar in Upstart Theatre Company’s February production.

In the York company’s early Sixties version, Sheridan’s tale of money, sex, scandal and gossip revolves around the Barton Club, its members and hangers-on.

Still at the centre of the story are reformed old bachelor Sir Peter Teazle (played by company founder Ian Giles) and his new young wife, Lady Teazle (full-time professional actress Victoria Delaney in her Upstart debut).

“That plotline involving an old fool with loads of money marrying a beautiful young trophy wife, and the silly old duffer then getting cuckolded, goes right back to Chaucer, but Sheridan then subverts it, which is the glory of his play,” says Ian.

The new setting of a Soho club brings back memories for Ian, who has grown a moustache to hark back to Fifties and Sixties.“I remember those clubs operating in the Sixties, when if someone wanted a drink in the afternoon, that’s where they’d go,” he says.

For all the Soho styling, the beating heart of the play lies in Sheridan’s characters. “There’s no competing with the set,” says Victoria. “It’s all about the characters and what they’re getting up to.”

“They’re not one-dimensional characters, despite their names, such as the Teazles teasing things out, or Mrs Candour, Careless or Sir Benjamin Backbite,” says Ian.

“At the end of the play, the finale is not what they expect, nor what the plot has led them to expect time and time again.”

Victoria believes the decision by director Clancy McMullan to concentrate all the play’s comings and goings in Mark Jackson’s design of a Soho club benefits the performance.

“There are constants in the setting, such as three people seeing everything from behind the bar throughout the play,” she says.

“So while the principal characters come and go, there are these characters that witness everything they do, such as Rowley, usually a male character, but now played by a woman [Clancy McMullan] as the manageress of the club.

“And she’s a very discreet manageress, who’s the confidante to Sir Peter and holds the knowledge and power but keeps it all under wraps.”

McMullan’s production has introduced two barmen, silent characters who see all but say nowt (in the tradition of Yorkshiremen).

“The reason for their presence, and why it’s important they’re there, is that all these people coming to the club have to keep up appearances in front of each other,” says Victoria.

“So if anything occurs that shames them, through people making fools of each other, the fact that others are observing it, adds to those characters’ pain and need to react to it.”

Watching eyes are all around. “We have characters sitting there reading newspapers, as people do in clubs, so everything that takes place is witnessed publicly,” says Ian.

“Rather than being hidden behind the arras in Shakespeare’s time, now they’re sitting behind newspapers.

“Newspapers are important in our production; they’re used in a lot of scenes because publicity was important to these high-society characters.”

Ian and Victoria are delighted to be working in partnership in Sheridan’s play. “When I got the role of Sir Peter, I said to Clancy, ‘You’ve got to get Vicky Delaney to play Lady Teazle’, and she said it was already in hand,” says Ian.

It was indeed, as Victoria confirms.

“We’d met when she was Mistress Ford and I was Mistress Page in York Shakespeare Project’s The Merry Wives Of Windsor. As soon as it was agreed by the committee that Clancy should direct The School For Scandal, she asked me if I would play Lady Teazle.”

Let the Soho fun and games begin.

• Upstart Theatre Company presents The School For Scandal at the Upstage Theatre, 41 Monkgate, York, from February 4 to 8 at 7.30pm plus a 2.30pm Saturday matinee. Box office: 01904 674675 or 07525 019053 or online at upstart.ticketsource.co.uk