13-05-2025
The Comedy About Spies: This level of stupidity takes real talent
Much as we can say we hanker after chewy state of the nation dramas, sometimes froth can be no less an imperative. Mischief Theatre have taken shrewd stock of the state of the nation and decided we need cheering up.
The troupe – probably the most successful UK comedy outfit since the Pythons – struck gold with their send-up of bumbling am-dram The Play That Goes Wrong (2012), which shows no sign of relinquishing its perch at the Duchess (and has enjoyed multiple international iterations). Far from resting on their laurels, the talented gaggle have capitalised on their calling-card hit to the formulaic hilt. There have been glorious '…Goes Wrong' sequels (Peter Pan, Magic, A Christmas Carol). Their latest West End venture follows more in the footsteps of the screwball The Comedy About a Bank Robbery (2016); it's a caper not a knowing car-crash.
I sheepishly confessed in my review of the latter show at the Criterion that I had been the odd one out about The Play That Goes Wrong, even goadingly citing it as my worst play experience of 2014. In my defence, I got divorced that year and have (I hope) since recovered my sense of humour. But it's worth observing that if you don't have a penchant for running gags flogged to death, rampant mugging, cheap sight gags and corny word-play then you may not be the ideal audience here. That said, even the most averse spectator will likely marvel at the gag-a-line detail, comic timing and sheer physical bravura of this company of fools, led by Henry Lewis and Henry Shields (co-writers too), directed by Matt DiCarlo.
Yes, this is a show – rewinding to the 1960s and every stereotype going about Cold War spying – with next to nothing to tell us. But in that abstention from commentary, and delight in daftness, something is subliminally communicated about the persistence of old-fashioned British comedy; the show carries the flag, quite nobly, for innocent japes.
Situated somewhere between Operation Mincemeat (though based on baloney, not actuality) and Fawlty Towers, the tirelessly farcical evening begins with MI6's headquarters being blown to smithereens following a blissfully idiotic sequence of door-slamming misunderstanding built around the agents' alphabetised code-names. The action switches to a hotel lobby then a cross-section of four bedrooms, with two Russians and two US operatives converging in search of a turncoat British agent.
In the midst of this invitation to bungle – involving covert bugged radios, overt communication failures and frantic excuses – stand the sweetly hapless figure of Shields's Bernard Wright, a baker, vainly trying to propose to his girlfriend (Adele James's Rosemary) and Lewis's Douglas Woodbead, a loudly roaring failed actor, preparing to audition for James Bond. No less cherishable are Charlie Russell and Chris Leask as the only too conspicuous Russkies, while Dave Hearn and Nancy Zamit impress as the clueless (and, ludicrously, related) Yanks. In a knowingly wearying second half, the plot thickens with spiralling double-crossing guaranteed to have everyone, not just the tourists, struggling to keep up. I'd say it takes near genius to fashion something this incorrigibly goofy.
