AN HOUR AND A HALF LATE AT THE ARTS THEATRE
Griff Rhys-Jones and Janie Dee
Griff Rhys Jones has always appeared as Gruff Rhys Jones, a man on a short fuse with hardly a minute to lose, a chap with no time for idiots and a bite just as bad as his bark. In this play, a tight script and a talent for timing combine to make him so watchable you forget the much-loved comedian of the immortal Mel Smith duo, and discover a superb stage actor .
It’s hard to hold an audience for one and a half hours with a two hander. Surely it has to flag you think nervously. But Griff and Janie Dee bring superb comic timing and real human feeling to create the sustained humour of this inventive piece of theatre. It is bound to become a classic.
Peter and Laura inhabit a beautiful house in West London. The burnished leather sofas and to-die-for soft furnishings create an elegant home that shouts money and taste – and the couple have both. They are about to go out to dinner. Peter, Griff Rhys Jones- jiggles the door knob . Laura is irritated. They begin to bicker. He is fizzing with the familiar Griff Rhys Jones irritation, common to many men in a hurry – they are off to seal a deal with Peter’s ex -partner in their tax consultancy. Suddenly Laura, a slim and gorgeous Janie Dee, announces she is not going to go. She has had enough. Dinner parties are too much. She refuses to sit through hostess Christine Bennet’s meal on the grounds that she collects empty boxes ( she has 360 Laura calculates). They are, she argues, a symbol of futility. Suddenly Laura sees through her own superficial life. She feels as empty as her friend’s boxes
Thus begins a play as witty as Noel Coward, as profound – in its way - as Harold Pinter and as funny as Alan Ayckbourn . It has to be an English comedy of manners, thought I . Wrong. This closely observed slice of upper class married life is French. Like so many social dramas for the stage in recent years – Gallic writers Gérald Sibleyras and Jean Dell have won sackfuls of prizes over in Paris, and now , superbly adapted and translated by Belinda Lang, they are ready to serve their sparking repartee, up to us Brits. Brilliantly.
It takes two brilliant performers to pull this off. Petulant Laura is also desperate. Peter is super funny but also a bit lost. British it isn’t apparently. Hilarious it is and well worth a visit to the theatre for a laugh-out-loud Hour and a Half of sadness tension and fun. Do they go to the dinner? Well worth the journey to find out.
And when you learn it’s French, you know perfectly well it’s far too sexy to be British, alas.
