BWW Reviews: STOP - THE PLAY , Trafalgar Studios, June 4 2015

In the rehearsal room, things are not going well. The lead actor is about to walk out, the lead actress is getting more and more concerned about the new lesbian scenes, the stagehand has a monkey on the loose and the director is relying on a script that is re-written (and I mean really re-written) every day. Will they be able to pull it all together in time for the opening show? Well, they do - but only in the sense that Basil Fawlty pulled together his infamous Gourmet Night.

Stop - The Play (continuing at the Trafalgar Studios until 27 June) is a farce running on Whitehall - where they should, I suppose. Writer David Spicer packs plenty into his two hours or so, and director John Schwab uses what little space he has - and then some of the seats too - to squeeze as many laughs as they can out of their play that is going to go wrong.

The ensemble cast come with plenty of star quality and go right over the top without ever losing that crucial footing in reality any farce needs. Adam Riches as Hugh, the egomaniac who claims to have no ego, is on the edge of a walkout all night and carries the anger well. Hatty Preston plays his leading lady as a bit of a ditzy blonde (well, ditzy redhead) but she shows her teeth in a brilliant putdown of James Woolley's old theatre pro, whose anecdotes just keep coming and coming and coming (alas not so his lines). I liked Charlie Cameron's much put-upon can-do stagehand, Chrissie, and Ben Starr's over-invested director too - a couple of comic turns whose next production I'd be keen to see.

Is it funny? Well, there's cross talk, slapstick, satire (are you watching, Banksy?) and plenty more, so you've got to try hard not to laugh at any of it! I laughed at most of it - but, of course, so much comedy is subjective, though plenty were laughing around me too! Is it flawless? No. Like most comedy it could do with a few cuts - ten minutes off each half would speed things up even further, as you can't have too much pace in a farce.

It's so hard to get comedies right in theatres (there's no warm-up act, no canned laughter, no easy by-play with the audience to generate rapport) and this one gets more right than most. If we've seen some of the characters and some of the situations before, that's fine if they're making us laugh and, in the days of stand-up megashows in gigantic venues, how splendid it is to see comedy done so well, so close. .

Photo Matt Humphrey

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