DON JUAN IN SOHO
Wyndham’s Theatre, until June 10. Tickets: 0844 482 5120
LIKE Casanova, Don Juan is one of the great seducers. Revered and reviled in equal measure, he has been brought to life in plays, films, opera and ballet.
But while the likes of Byron and Mozart immortalised him, Patrick Marber’s modern take on the world’s most infamous womaniser buries him six feet under.
Having recently married Elvira (Danielle Vitalis), DJ continues his philandering behaviour until he meets his comeuppance at the hands of her brothers, or through divine intervention, depending on your interpretation.
Set in an oddly palatial hotel in Soho, the play opens with a bevy of men and women dressed in tight underwear cavorting around like they are filming a Jean-Paul Gaultier perfume commercial.
And when DJ’s agitated brother-in-law arrives to speak to him, he is told by DJ’s faithful valet Stan (Adrian Scarborough) that he is “banging a Croatian supermodel”.
From the moment DJ appears on stage in the shape of David Tennant, it is clear we are in for a squirmfest of over-egged loucheness and ersatz depravity. Like a cross between Russell Brand and Sebastian Horsley, the Soho artist and so-called “Dandy in the Underworld”, he flounces and prances, poses and pouts, hair carefully tousled, cigarette held just so.
Tennant is about as convincing as a guinea pig impersonating a tarantula. He is not alone. There is woeful work from several actors on stage, their delivery so operatically artificial that they seem to think they are in a 1950s Shakespeare production.
Only Scarborough’s Stan is grounded in reality and consequently the only character we really care about.
As Marber is the director of his own play, he is as culpable as anyone else. He suffers from a surfeit of alliteration (“He is Satan in a suit from Savile Row”) and literary aspiration beyond his capabilities.
DJ’s great diatribe towards the end of the play is his attempt at a vitriolic aria of contempt at
the modern world in the manner of John Osborne. But Marber lacks Osborne’s rapier articulacy and dramatic rhythm and the speech comes across like the banal expostulations of a grouchy adolescent.
This is a subtlety-free zone in all respects and the video and dance inserts are lamentable.
A catastrophically ill-favoured production.
THE WIPERS TIMES Arts Theatre, until May 17. Tickets: 020 7836 8463
IAN Hislop and Nick Newman’s play is an honourable enterprise. It tells the true story of a handful of soldiers in the First World War who published a satirical newspaper from the trenches in Ypres in France, called Wipers because the British Tommy had difficulty with French pronunciation.
Made into a BBC film in its first incarnation, The Wipers Times is more of an affectionate tribute to the newspaper than a fully fledged play and in this production its music hall elements are ramped up to offer respite from the whizz bangs and mud of trench warfare. When two officers discover an abandoned printing press in a bombed-out building, they decide to boost the troops’ morale by producing a paper that takes the mickey out of the top brass and emphasises the absurdities of war rather than its horrors.
The paper evolves into a thriving little enterprise.
This surprisingly endearing story is complete with original jokes and puns from the period which are of course extremely dated and not very funny.
But these were soldiers, not stand-up comedians, and I admired the authors’ bravery in maintaining the authenticity of the voices.
The joke advertisements are reminiscent of Spike Milligan’s Beachcomber series, which despite being rooted in the Second World War had a similar air of wartime nostalgia.
The ensemble cast are easy on the ear and eye with special mention for Peter Losasso as the slightly dim Dodd and the hardworking Dan Tetsell in a variety of roles.