Please excuse the expletive but it costs me a bob or three to get up to London and see a West End show. Yesterday four of us went up to see the revival of Boeing Boeing which received rave reviews from all the critics, well, all the critics I read, anyway. How I miss Bernard Levin who I would trust on a theatre review no matter how much the cost or the inconvenience of getting there. Boeing Boeing is a second rate farce throughout although I did chuckle on an occasional basis during the second half. During the first half, I smiled - twice. I know because I counted them! The point about farce is that that it lies in the action and when the curtain went up to display a set with six doors, I rubbed my hands in expectation of a first class 'door slammer'. Now, of course, the playwright must spend time setting up the situation, which in this case was a playboy in Paris with three fiancees all of whom were air stewardesses on different schedules which he had worked out to the finest detail. Throw in the arrival of a rather gauche but well-meaning friend, and a housekeeper/maid of a sardonic disposition, and we were set up for the doors to start slamming in true farcical style. But the playwright, the late Marc Camoletti, took over an hour to set this simple scenario before the first girl arrived.
Matthew Warchus was the director and I am never very sure whether directors ever go back to see their shows after they have opened, and particularly after the original cast has been changed. Some one should tell him to get back - quick! The part of the maid was played by Jean Marsh, you know, of Upstairs Downstairs fame, so that tells you how old she must be and so it was not a total surprise that she was so slow I could have smoked a fag between lines - if it wasn't illegal. Everyone else, as though to make up for potentially terminal inertia of her performance, threw themselves at it with insane energy. To be fair, part of that energy might have come from good, old-fashioned fear because three of them were understudies! Now, I know, perhaps better than most because of my theatrical activities, that actors go sick from time to time - but three of them? And all on a Saturday?
Again, I don't know whether it was Warchus's idea but the play is set in Paris and the two male friends are French, although one comes from the sticks. So, for reasons unknown to me, the playboy spoke received English and his friend spoke with a broad Welsh accent! The Parisian maid spoke with a strangulated cockney accent, for all the world like an escapee from East Enders. The three girls did their stuff fairly well but, poor things, it was very second-rate stuff to work on. When you have seen Frayn at his best, Donkey's Years and Noises Off, you have seen farce raised to burnished brilliance. This production was lead - and leaden!
So, that's two duds in a row. Fingers crossed for Much Ado in January with Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wannamaker. If they can't create magic, I might give up on the West End.
Comments