PRESENT LAUGHTER. Tour to 29 March.

Tour

PRESENT LAUGHTER
by Noël Coward

At Richmond Theatre
Theatre Royal Bath Productions tour to 29 March 2003
Runs: 3hr Two intervals
Review: Emma Dunford 3 March at Richmond Theatre

Present Laughter: not just a star vehicle for Rik Mayall, but witty, provocative and highly accomplished in its own right.
If Noël Coward created the protagonist role of Garry Essendine with himself in mind, he might have conjectured someone like Rik Mayall would be following close behind.

It is a bravura role written with the sole intention of making the actor look attractive, witty and fashionable, whilst at the same time allowing ample scope for the audience to laugh out loud at the character's expense. And if this isn't Rik Mayall down to a tee, I don't know what is.

Coward's famously sharp wit's abundant in Present Laughter. Garry Essendine, a famous romantic comic actor, delights in his embroidered language and showy gestures whilst at the same time using them to fend off accusation and avoid having to tell the truth.

He has immersed himself in a milieu of affectation and thus must learn to circumnavigate around the people pressing to get in upon his artificial world.

Rik Mayall plays this embroiled thesp with ease, although he could at times just as easily be playing Richie Richard in his own sitcom comedy Bottom. In the first act he tends to overstate the obvious overacting when overacting isn't called for with his hands gesticulating and his speech noisy and rushed, thus losing the all-important sense of contrast.

His flamboyant style tones down in the later acts, however, providing an opportunity for Mayall to prove what he's really made of a fine comic actor with the depth and resonance needed to keep an audience laughing right into, and indeed beyond, the curtain call.

If Mayall is the star and Coward would not have had it any other way there's good work in support. John Dougall's butler and Joanne Howarth's housekeeper, though small roles, are wonderfully apt at helping define the pretentiousness of the Essendine household.

Liz (Garry's wife), Joanna (his mature lover) and Daphne (his virginal lover) are all suitably genteel and condescending, sexually domineering and adoring, respectively.

John Dougall (again) and Gerrard McArthur as Henry and Morris, characterise the lesser lights of Garry's theatre world with lesser charm and lesser wit wonderfully done while Henry Mannering's homosexual buffoon Roland Moule, would-be playwright and asinine dramatic philosopher could not be more hilarious to watch.

Towards the end of the show Garry praises acting in provincial theatres - with a dexterous cast, an effective set and spot on timing, Dominic Dromgoole's direction lives up to this advocacy.

Garry Essendine: Rik Mayall
Liz Essendine: Caroline Harker
Morris Dixon: Gerrard McArthur
Henry Lyppiatt/Fred: John Dougall
Joanna Lyppiatt: Kim Thomson
Monica Reed: Pooky Quesnel
Miss Erikson: Joanne Howarth
Daphne Stillington: Sally Bretton
Lady Saltburn: Susan Lorrett
Roland Moule: William Mannering

Director: Dominic Dromgoole
Designer: Michael Taylor
Lighting Design: Natasha Chivers
Sound Design: Gregory Clarke
Costume Supervisor: Ronnie Dorsey

Tour:
10-15 March Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford
24-29 March Theatre Royal Bath

2003-03-09 21:35:15