No kidding! Child’s play is close to comic perfection
Groan Ups (Vaudeville Theatre, London) Verdict: Striking farce ★★★★✩
This critic is a child of the Nineties, so every sly gag at the expense of MsN messenger, Ronan Keating and WKD Blue had me howling.
i wasn’t alone. it’s an almighty comfort to hear an auditorium of all ages nearly choke themselves to death laughing.
The flawless comedy troupe Mischief Theatre stormed Edinburgh, the West End, the UK and Broadway with The Play That Goes Wrong, branched out into Peter Pan, Christmas and a bank heist, and even ended up on TV.
They offer high-octane sitcom energy, sharp scripts and gently smutty humour. This time, their focus is school and growing up. We follow five ‘children’ up and out of the classes; from very young and frantic, to mid-30s and despondent.
henry Lewis, Jonathan sayer and henry shields write and star. it’s madly funny and there is an outrageous farce sequence towards the end ( doors are slammed, affairs are revealed, hamsters are ‘killed’), but the most delicious treat is seeing this band of grown men and women play a class of five-yearolds, standing next to 6ft chairs, flouncing around and descending into indignant screams.
it’s a great mix of cheap and dirty, with smart execution. A child misunderstanding what she heard coming from her parents’ bedroom as they argue over the mop (‘give it to me, give it to me, so dirty’) nearly winded me.
The whole lot of them are near comedy perfection, but Nancy Zamit stands out in particular.
having said all that, it’s far too long. We’re trained early, by Groan Ups, into expecting barely five seconds going by without another gag, trip, slam or breaking of wind. so when it slows for a while in the middle, and fumbles after a bit of emotional heft at the end, it’s quite deflating.
i didn’t really buy the marriage breakdown or the ‘coming out’ that it twists into, but i was still left with a feast of jokes.