Monday 8th – Saturday 13th, 7.45 with matinees on Saturday and Thursday, £10-27.
Directed by Belinda Lang.
This is going to be a bit of an odd review, because to be honest there is more chance that you’ll tread in unicorn poo on the way to a lecture than fork out a tenner to go and see this Noël Coward comedy at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. None of your friends are in it, you can’t go just to bitch about people you don’t like, and there isn’t the possibility of the whole show crumbling before your eyes in a gloriously am-dram mess.
Sucks to be you then, because Present Laughter is an absolutely fantastic show of comedy, melancholy and ruddy good acting which serves to remind me that student drama has got a long way to go. Yes, I was the youngest person in the theatre. Yes, I was the only person not going bald. Yes, it was weird that I wasn’t sucking on a Werther’s Original remembering the time when Vera Lynn was on the wireless that time. But you know what? I don’t care. Coward’s tale of a melodramatic actor on the brink of insanity thanks to his annoyingly clingy friends is a zippy and on the whole light-hearted piece giving an insight into the life of a thesp in 1940s London.
Garry Essendine’s (Robert Bathurst) Chelsea flat is a hive of activity. When the actor isn’t bringing anonymous girls back from swanky parties he is answering letters from people he doesn’t even like and juggling his relationship with ex-wife Liz (Serena Evans), secretary Monica (Belinda Lang) and the rest of his glam troupe of faux-amis. That’s right, I did some French. This is the theatre darling. It’s difficult to tell you what exactly the play is about without giving too much away, but with a looming trip to Africa in the not too distant future, Garry finds relationships threatened and revelations admitted to the point where he becomes frustrated with the role he is playing and the false environment he finds himself in. While this all sounds a bit on the deep side, I assure you that hilarity ensues with razor-sharp wit from the script and impeccable comic timing from all of the actors. Present Laughter may verge on the silly, but on these occasions the play is aware of the comedy formulae it is adhering too. In a brilliantly brisk Act Three, one character notes that she feels as though she is in a French farce. She is, but Coward’s constant irony and slips into melancholy ensure that Present Laughter does not become as banal as cross-dressing and hiding in cupboards.
Bathurst is fantastic as the egocentric and boastful Essendine, changing from sullen and cynical to extrovert and dramatic in the blink of an eye. His overacting at key points in the play is intended and provides some of the biggest laughs. However, this is a play which is all about the women behind a great man, and exceptional performances from Evans and Lang (who also directs), along with Emma Davies as the seductive Joanna and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as naïve yet dangerous Daphne. Each woman is as bitchy and acid-tongued as the next and the actresses do justice to Coward’s barbed script. The most interesting scenes in the play come when one woman is bouncing off the other, vying for the attentions of the man in the middle, who acts as a kind of ringmaster in the circus that used to be his humble abode. Special mention too must go to recent Oxford (boo) graduate Tim Bouverie who plays creepy yet hilarious theatre fanatic Roland Maule. Bouverie bounds across the stage with the energy of an excitable pup and causes havoc as he attempts to understand social norms. Never before has the simple act of asking for a biscuit been so hilarious. This boy will go far.
Look, I know you won’t, but please make an effort to go and see Present Laughter, because it’s hilarious, perfectly acted and if nothing else, a really relaxing night out at the theatre. There’s also nothing more oddly comforting than watching a more mature audience respond to theatre through reminiscence of a past age. Just go. It makes getting older a whole lot easier.
Related Articles
No related articles.
