Look Behind You by Daniel Wain. The Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4 to 03 February 2024. 3***: William Russell.
Look Behind You by Daniel Wain. The Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, Chiswick, London W4 to 03 February 2024. 3***: William Russell.
“Backstage Pantomine.”
This revival of one of Strut & Fret’s past hits – it was first performed at the Tabard in 1999 – is packed jokes good, bad, old and possibly even new but all funny. Dick Whittington is the pantomime being presented in the Britannia, a rundown seaside theatre, and we see what happens on stage and back stage – the debt to Noises Off is acknowledged - but somehow or other the two stories fail to combine into one play. What one gets is a series of sketches some of which work, some of which land with a dead thud. Playwright Daniel Wain, who also appears as Sam, who runs the Britannia Theatre and also plays Sarah the Cook, has updated the piece giving the stressed man with a dying theatre on his hands a long speech about the current state of live theatre as grants are cut and audiences dwindle. It is powerful, well worth delivering, but it goes on for too long and upsets the balance of the play. But there are rewards – as I said the jokes are good and Wain has managed to walk that delicate pantomime line of something being funny for grown ups and children for completely different reasons perfectly. Director Barney Hart Dyke has not managed to get everything to coalesce into a comedy with a message. However there are performances to relish – Wain makes a funny and raunchy Cook and a gloriously distraught theatre owner, Caroline Ross is terrific as Bernie, an over the hill conjurer whose prop monkey, is every bit as obnoxious a Emu, and whose spats with Oliver Redpath as Nicholas May the arrogant newcomer playing Idle Jack , who is intent on seducing anybody who comes to hand, get really dangerous. May gets a comeuppance involving handcuffs and under pants to savour As the fairy and queen rat Cait Hart Dyke and Mia Skytte spout their rhymes delightfully while managing to convey the sadness and stresses of their back stories while Annabelle Miller as the stressed stage manager whose private life is a disaster copes with all the goes wrong beautifully. The matinee audience on a chill Saturday manifestly had a good time – I had too - but if it had all worked as a fully rounded play, which is what Noises Off does, it would have been so much better. It did look that lessons were being learned, however, as the director was there at the rear of the audience with a notebook scribbling away. Maybe in eleven months time Strut & Fret can comeback with everything in order.
Cast
Ellie Armstrong – Suzanne
Olivia Jackson – Wendy
Director – Barbet Hart Dyke
Cait Hart Dyke – Camille Crabbe/Fairy Bowbells.
Annabelle Miller – Maggie, the stage manager.
Oliver Redpath – Nicholas May/Idle Jack.
Anna Piggot – Jessie Musto/Alice Fitzwarren.
Steve Pratt – Robin Eldridge/ Alderman Fitzwarren.
Caroline Ross – Bernie Bigelow/Captain Barnacle.
Mia Skytte – Norma Bailey/Queen Rat,
Matt Tester – Fin Caffrey/Dick Whittington.
Daniel Wain – Sam Nancarrow/Sarah the Cook.
Creatives
Director – Barney Hart Dyke,
Designer – Richard Evans.
