Review: THE PLAY WITH SPEECHES, Jack Studio Theatre

It may not be the only quality one should look for in a comedy, but laughs are right up there on the list. Not enough comedies deliver their fair share - but Olive & Stavros certainly do with their meta-theatrical The Play With Speeches.

Humour can be tricky to analyse (probably one reason why it's so hard to do) and breaking James Woolf's characters and plot into its constituent parts can make it sound clichéd, even dull - as ever, it's all in the delivery Katherine Reilly coaxes from her cast.

We're in a rehearsal room with a writer and director squabbling a little at a table and actors outside waiting to come in for a line reading (and, no doubt, surprised to find an audience for their audition). The writer, Anthony (there's a running gag in that and who doesn't love one of those?) explains that the play in question comprises a collage of speeches from other plays but builds into a coherent work in its own right - the director, Penny, rolls her eyes at such a conceit, but we're already smirking. So in come the actors, one by one, all earnest and hopeful, while Anthony and Penny reveal more and more of the not insignificant baggage they have brought to the table.

What fun with have on this casting from hell! Matthew Parker finds a sweet spot somewhere between Ricky Gervais and Eric Morecambe for his nightmarish but charming Anthony. His reactions as the lines are spoken are priceless - meme material if ever there was such - and his little summaries of the plays from which he has taken the speeches are wonderfully well observed satires of the wannabee Noel Cowards whose work would have populated fringe venues in the 20th century with plots that are magnificently hackneyed.

Gillian King plays off Parker's puppyish desire to please with her world-weary Penny slowly coming into her own as she outmanoeuvres her erstwhile lover with plenty of barbs and asides. And she shows that oleaginous fawning is not solely the preserve of men.

An ensemble cast of actors play the er... actors and have a lot of fun, often by appearing very different in role than outside and sometimes by being exactly the same. One sees the cruelty of the instant judgements made on a sliver of evidence and speculate on what a crazy world theatre must be - and then one thinks of interview panels on which one has served and recall exactly the same evidence-free instant likes and dislikes. I rather wonder if Woolf has written a primer for how not to hire staff in any environment.

Plays like this always run the risk of being just a little too pleased with their own cleverness and the last 15 minutes or so toppled over that line for me, but that does not detract from an evening full of laughter illuminated by fine performances and a smart script. Like a musical that has you tapping your foot on the bus home, this comedy had me chuckling to myself on the road to Elephant and Castle - and you can't get much more of an endorsement than that!

The Play With Speeches is at the Jack Studio Theatre until 22 October

Photo Credit: Lidia Crisafulli

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