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Black Comedy

There’s something damn peculiar going on in this room’, Colonol Melkett shouts abruptly, after having had his chair removed, his drink switched, his host crawling around madly on the floor and his sight rendered useless.

And for someone, as I was, familiar with Peter Shaffer’s work only through the distinctly sombre ‘Amadeus’ and ‘Equus’, this one-act play was indeed something peculiar, hilarious and brilliantly refreshing – a play about darkness that certainly enlightened me to an entirely different dimension to one of our most beloved playwrights. This is a delightful farce of bourgeois snobbery, taking a satirical swipe at how a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mentality leads engaged couple Carol and Brindsley to ‘borrow’ a neighbour’s chic furniture in order to impress a German millionaire and Carol’s formidable father. A fuse blows; unexpected guests, including the owner of said furniture, arrive; nonsensical brilliance ensues.

The script is a treat and is handled superbly by Jonathan Fisher, whose adept direction maintains that the shambles on stage stays tight and together: with so many characters and props, so many different things happening simultaneously, it could easily have ended up one big childish mess. As it is, everywhere you turn there is a sight to savour.

It is almost impossible to find fault in the acting talents of this company. David Ralf took off slowly as protagonist Brindsley, but quickly evolved into a wonderful Fawlty-esque anti-hero, who fuses manically comic desperation with just a soupcon of fragility; Brindsley is a man who clearly wants too much in life. As individuals they shine; as an ensemble they glimmer with professionalism, and though space confines me to only a few specific mentions, I must applaud Hannah McGrath’s performance as the sozzled baptist’s daughter Miss Furneval, who delivers every line with cheeky panache. And kudos has to go to Joe Paddison for what can only be described as the most awful German accent you are ever likely to hear; seriously, his melange of eastern European, Norwegian and, bafflingly, Chinese twangs puts ‘Allo ‘Allo and Peter Sellers to shame on the silly-foreign-accent front.

This production of Black Comedy illuminates Shaffer’s script, shining a light not just on the comedy but also on the strain of keeping up appearances, on God, on life, and on Shaffer’s homage to ‘that magic dark room where everything happens the wrong way round’ – the theatre itself.

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