Review: Was Stan Raving about Simon Paisley Day's new comedy?
24/10/2013
Film critic Mark Kermode has a five laugh rule for comedies. If he doesn't laugh five times at a film comedy it isn't funny.
It's an interesting rule because on the one hand I think I laughed five times at Simon Paisley Day's new comedy at the Hampstead Theatre but on the other I found there was much wanting.
Three couples have left their kids being cared for at home while they have a much needed weekend away in rural Wales. As soon as you know it is Wales you know there are going to be one or more of the following plot contrivances: a) no phone signal, b) a power cut and c) a scary or unwelcoming farmer or local. You can tick off two out of those three so in that respect it didn't disappoint.
The problem is that aside from the occasional funny line (and this is a two hour play plus interval) Raving is predictable and full of cliches and stereotypes.
Take the couples. Briony (Tamsin Outhwaithe) and Keith (Barnaby Kay) are 'lefty' teachers and politically correct parents. Serena (Issy Van Randwyck) and Charles (Nicholas Rowe) are upper-middle class, boorish, hunting types who don't believe in setting boundaries for their kids. And Rosy (Sarah Hadland) and Ross (Robert Webb) are middle class professionals who are successful at everything they do.
There is nothing particularly clever. The arcs are all fairly obvious, the perfect become less so, the unlikeable become likeable and the unsuccessful succeed and naturally skeletons of the obvious kind are let out of the closet. Tick off someone caught in a compromising position, inappropriate flirtation and an injury involving a kitchen implement and you get the idea.
The concession to this being a contemporary comedy seems to be a plot thread involving adults drinking breast milk.
Despite the great set and solid performances this just feels like a mediocre sit-com, a domestic set farce for those that think couples talking about their sex life is risque.
There are some occasional sharp one-liners but overall this just feels a bit hackneyed. It certainly wasn't the contemporary comedy I was expecting but the Hampstead audience seemed to be enjoying it more than I, so perhaps I'm not the target audience. Poly saw it with me and you can read her far more eloquently written thoughts here.
Raving runs at the Hampstead Theatre until November 23.
RS/BW 6DS
Now this is a good one if I may say so myself. None other than Alan Rickman was at the Hampstead theatre - not seeing Raving as far as I could tell but whatever is on at the Studio. He famously tortured Mr W by dunking him head first into a barrel of water in the film Perfume.