Tonight:
9°c
Some fares could fall by more than a third when Oyster is extended to every national rail station in London, it has emerged
More...
New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nick Curtis's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Terry Johnson.
Cast: Edward Baker-Duly, Lynda Baron, Nick Brimble, Mark Hadfield, Kellie Shirley, Neil Stuke, Clare Wilkie, Sarah Woodward
Description: Terry Johnson directs Ben Travers's farcical comedy about a newly married playboy who arrives at his home to find a young girl in need of his help.
Trains: Tube/BR: London Bridge 
Phone: 0207907 7060
Website: www.menierchocolatefactory.com
Extra info: Food, Pub
Frantic: Gerald (Neil Stuke) with sister-in-law Gertrude (Sarah Woodward)
Talk about a guilty pleasure. Ben Travers’s farce from 1926 is as daft and rickety as they come, an absurd confection of cause and effect. The country-cottage set looks like something out of am-dram. Yet Terry Johnson’s frantically precise production for the ever-surprising Chocolate Factory made me laugh more than is seemly or sensible.
If the conventions of Travers’s comedy look old-fashioned, the subject matter seems quite racy for its time. It sings with the distant possibility of sex. Recently-wed Gerald Popkiss finds himself alone in a rented seaside home with a nice young girl in dew-drenched pyjamas. She’s been cast out by her German stepfather for a trivial offence but scurrilous village gossip, propagated by Gerald’s waspish sister-in-law, has it that the girl is “fast”.
Alternately aided and hampered by his wet brother-in-law Harold and roguish cousin Clive, Gerald finds himself sweating and twitching through a hectic comedy of manners, slamming doors and misconstrued good intentions like a frog impaled on an electrode.
It’s the sort of scenario where cats exist only to be stepped on, loofahs to be sat upon, and servants to be abused by brittle young toffs. Where the natural place for a dropped, incriminating golf club is down Gerald’s trousers. A too-stringent probing of the twisted logic of farce is largely prevented, though, by the conviction of Johnson’s cast.
Neil Stuke strains a bit to incarnate Gerald’s abject desperation. But he carries off with panache the comic physical business. Kellie Shirley has just the right air of heedless pulchritude as the runaway, Rhoda, curling and flexing like a Cheshire cat. Edward Baker-Duly has a name and a languid swagger perfect for this sort of stuff, and he delivers a splendidly deft, airy performance as Clive. Victoria Yeates deserves mention for a lovely late cameo as a village wench coaxed rather easily out of her frock.
Best not to look too closely at the plot, much less the sexual politics. Travers takes delight in linguistic and romantic confusion, and absurdity for its own sake. Most people will be glad that they really don’t make ’em like this any more. But the clockwork meticulousness and rollicking impetus of Johnson’s revival makes me glad, too, that they did, once upon a time.
Until 20 June (020 7907 7060,
www.menierchocolatefactory).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
