BWW Reviews: RECIPE FOR A PERFECT WIFE, The Charing Cross Theatre, June 8 2011

If you're still out in London at 10.00pm, chances are that it's been a long day and you're not looking to unwind with a performance of Hedda Gabler. And Hedda Gabler is exactly what you don't get at The Charing Cross Theatre, where Christina McCulloch's Recipe for a Perfect Wife is playing midweek until June 26.

The show - for it is as much a show as a play - comprises an hour-long recording of a cheesy 1950s game show in which five lady contestants aim to prove that they have the Recipe for a Perfect Wife. The set-up allows everyone to adopt comical 1950s attitudes: perfection in a wife is defined solely in relation to serving their husband's needs; everyone speaks in Posh Totty Received Pronunciation (well, almost everybody); and there are some wonderfully anachronistic adverts that act as good PR for the Advertising Standards Authority of today.

The cast have a lot of fun onstage, with Matt Hoolihan's turn as a Bruce Forsyth cum Austin Powers ingratiating host a nice counterpoint to Antonia Reid's steely glamour girl/hostess/wife/author. The Beverley Sisters inspired trio of singers (Kate Thomas, Harrie Hayes and a coquettishly knowing Kate Collinson) belt out a few standards in lovely close harmony between the rounds. The audience applauds the winners and commiserates with the losers, playing its part to the full.  And, as each wife is eliminated, the baby spot picks them out and they tell the real story behind the facade of perfection. Though none are desperately unhappy, all are searching for a personal identity separated from that of their neglectful husbands. Those identities were still far off, awaiting The Pill, equal pay (if not equal wages) and the cultural shift led by Women's Libbers in the 70s.

The show has a few faults - the set is very static and there are some references that spoil the Fifties feel a little ("Domestic Goddess", "Colour Television") but it would be churlish to dwell on such matters. "Recipe" is a bit like a reverse image of the long-running "Defending the Caveman",  illustrating the battle of the sexes with humour and poignancy, making its points with a lightness of touch rather than deploying the heavy hand of polemic - and it's all the tastier for it.  

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