Synopsis:
The play is set in May 2009, one year before the General Election, Gordon Brown's Labour government is unpopular. Robert Houston is a Labour backbencher seeking to defect to the Conservatives to keep his seat, when the expenses scandal hits the papers the day before his interview with Sir Norman Cavendish to complete the switch. Houston, having claimed practically everything on expenses (including hanging baskets, massage chair, elephant lamps, sparkly toilet seat and duck house) is in trouble and so are his family and staff, and somehow Seb's girlfriend Holly is involved with Sir Norman….
Cast:
Robert Houston, MP – Ben Miller
Felicity, his wife – Nancy Carroll
Ludmilla, his maid – Debbie Chazen
Seb, his son – James Musgrave
Sir Norman Cavendish, MP – Simon Shepherd
Holly, Seb’s girlfriend – Diana Vickers
Creative Team:
Written by: Dan Patterson and Colin Swash
Director: Terry Johnson
Set and costume design: Lez Brotherston
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Well, last night I was entertained and entranced by a superb
production of Candide, which was worth every penny of the ticket price. Today I have been blown away in a different
sense, by the appalling and excruciating idiocy of one of the worst things I
have seen as a paying customer at the theatre in a very long time. Now, if you are a regular reader you will
know that I have very little time for farce; I rate it only slightly higher as
an art form than Last of the Summer Wine (something I would willingly undergo
a haemorrhoidectomy with blunt spoons and no anaesthetic to avoid). I vaguely expressed an interest in seeing
this because of its subject matter; like you, I lapped up every column inch of
the expenses scandal and chuntered away into my coffee (which I paid for
myself). The fact that it was written by
the stalwart scripters of Mock the Week and HIGNFY only increased my interest.
Slightly. Well readers, as the saying
goes, “Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it”. We got dirt-cheap tickets (always a sign that
the box office is falling off) and I have to say it was worth exactly what we
paid for it.
The early part of the first half is not without promise –
there are lots of funny throwaway lines in the vein of HIGNFY; comments that
are funny with the benefit of hindsight about how our elected representatives
stole huge sums of money from the electorate in the name of “expenses”. There are also digs at Peter Mandelson, how
well Chris Huhne drives and how devoted he is to his wife, “Teflon Tony”,
Andrew Mitchell (“nice chap, rides a bike”) and so on and so forth, and they
come thick and fast. But then the
elements of farce start to creep in alongside an improbable story about how
Houston has “flipped” his centrally located flat in order to furnish his
constituency home and vice versa. Doors
start to bang, trousers are dropped, things fall out of cupboards and a ridiculous
subplot based around cock-fighting debts emerges, and its at this point that
things start to get a lot less funny. The farcical element starts to feel as if
it has been rammed head on with political satire in a desperate attempt to get
them to meld together and the result is a complete and utter chimera;
identifiably neither one thing nor the other.
Eggs are secreted in pockets (and you just know that, in a couple of
minutes, someone is going to slap those pockets by mistake) and then a bowl of
custard is hidden on the seat of the massage chair (and you just know that, in
a couple of minutes, someone is going to sit on the chair by mistake) and so on
and so forth. There is a lot of running
around hiding things in cupboards (and you just know that, in a couple of
minutes, they are going to fall out of the cupboard at compromising moments…….). Its all utterly, utterly predictable.
An element of farce even crept into the interval. I went to the toilet and found that the floor
was an inch deep in water. Bear in mind that The Vaudeville Theatre is owned
and operated by Nimax Theatres, the same group who own the Apollo Theatre
(where the ceiling fell in recently). I
searched around to try and find a member of front of house staff to report this
to and the only person I could find was selling ice cream. Someone was despatched with a mop and
bucket. At this point, Him Indoors
decided that he too needed a piddle and headed for the same toilets. A flunky
monkey in a badly fitting suit was on guard duty outside the door and announced
that the toilets were now closed due to flooding, so Him Indoors was directed
upstairs to another toilet, outside of which there was now a long queue of gentlemen
wishing to relieve themselves. When, I
ask you, did you ever see a queue outside the Gents? There were so many in the queue that Him
Indoors was forced to choose between going to the toilet and getting back to
his seat for the second half. He should have
chosen the former….
The second half died on its feet. Died a horrible, lingering death.
Slowly. The story ran completely out of
any kind of creative steam and descended into hiding in wardrobes, low rent
prostitutes, MPs dressing up in nappies and being spanked with a copy of the
Lisbon Treaty, some ‘Allo ‘Allo caricatures of various European heads of state,
stolen trousers, people smearing themselves with cheese, a can of aerosol glue,
lots more slamming doors and a panda costume. Yes, it sounds ghastly and
believe me, it was. The laughter from
the auditorium ebbed quickly away and turned into the kind of embarrassed,
uncomfortable silence that greets a resounding fart at a formal dinner
party. Him Indoors sat there with a
busting bladder and I got more and more uncomfortable that I had actually
expressed an interest in the show and dragged him to it. Never have I felt so guilty. The “jokes” were puerile, the plot as thin as
an MPs excuse, the frenetic activity on stage only serving to highlight the
paucity of the writing. How this drivel
ever made it to the stage I will never know.
Actually, I do know.
Someone somewhere sensed a bandwagon stashed high with money and jumped
on it as it rattled past. This is the
kind of show you get when the £ signs pop up in the eyes of someone high up in
Nimax Theatres and they think “Fuck art, this is going to make me so much money
that it will make the claim for moat cleaning look like peanuts”. What makes it worse is that some slimy
apologist for MPs has actually contributed an article to the programme about
how what good value for money our elected representatives are, how hard they
work and how much more we should be paying them so that they aren’t tempted to
commit fraud. In a display of chutzpah
so blatantly misplaced that it makes Margaret Moran’s claim that she was “too
depressed” to stand trial look like a scene from Oliver Twist, the company that
makes the duck house that Sir Peter Viggers “bought” with our money has
actually taken an advert in the programme.
Is there no beginning to these peoples’ shame?
Nancy Carroll, a stunning Viola a couple of years ago in
Twelfth Night, demeans her craft by appearing in such drivel. And what bright
spark cast Diana Vickers, X-Factor reject and all round talentless slapper, in
this? Did they think she could act? Well, they will be disabused of this opinion
should they care to witness her witless attempts at performance.
Really, take some advice.
Stay at home. Save your money.
Use your own toilet. This duck’s goose
is well and truly cooked. Painfully
unfunny.
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These are my opinions. I am entitled to them. As you are to yours. If you are going to respond to my opinions, at least make your responses worthwile. Vitriol is pointless. And more importantly, won't get published - so you'll be shouting in the dark.