Travesties at Pitlochry theatre

It’s zany, madcap, bizarre – call it what you will – but, under the charge of the top duo of director Richard Baron and designer Adrian Rees, Tom Stoppard’s Travesties is strangely compelling and entertaining, and a valuable addition to the repertoire at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Set in Switzerland as the First World War rages everywhere else, Zurich plays host to such luminaries as Irish author James Joyce, revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin to his friends and enemies) and Tristan Tzara, founder of the Dada art (or anti-art) movement.

Old Henry Carr, once an embassy official, is reminiscing about his experiences with the trio – memories with only a nodding acquaintance to reality and more to do with his vivid imagination.

He plays out his fantasies as if he was starring – as he once did – in a production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Stoppard expounds his views on art and war as his characters – real and fictional – romp around in a melange of drama, pantomime and sheer farce.

Mark Elstob has honed his reputation at Pitlochry over the years, and can look back on Henry Carr as one of his finest characters.

It’s a marathon role, which he takes in his stride (or shuffle) ably supported by the zaniness of Graham Mackay-bruce as Tzara and Alex Scott Fairley as Joyce.

Post interval brings even more farce, with particular mention to Camrie Palmer and Lucie-mae Sumner for their superb parody of the vaudeville song Mister Gallagher and Mister Shean, reworked as their “Earnest” characters Gwendoline Fairfax and Cecily Cardew.

Audiences will have to keep up – it’s taken at breakneck speed. Unfortunately, this could be at the expense of some of the dialogue, but Stoppard is never short of a word or two, so there is plenty more to keep you going.

And, of course, there is always the traditional Baron curtain call to savour. Rarely a genteel genuflect from this director.

Travesties continues on various dates until October 10.