Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford – until 16th March 2019
Reviewed by Antonia Hebbert
2**
Two playwrights are on a luxury liner to New York. Their latest collaboration is due to be performed when they arrive, but they’re still working on it. Also on board are Adam, the show’s sensitive young composer, Natasha the leading lady that he loves, and Ivor the leading man who is pursuing her. The composer has a speech problem: he can’t get his timing right. And the cabin steward doesn’t know his way around a boat.
Things duly go comically wrong, but somehow it is hard to care, for the first half at least. Tom Stoppard based this 1984 play on Ferenc Molnar’s 1926 romantic comedy Play at the Castle. You might expect Stoppard’s playfulness to enhance the comedy, but it actually seems to flatten it without adding other interest. Charlie Stemp raised the most laughs as Dvornichek the cabin steward, whose role is to misunderstand things while also explaining to the audience exactly what’s going on.
In the second half, I did find myself laughing at some of the one-liners. The composer (Rob Ostlere) can talk sense again, and in the last ten minutes or so the play becomes more fun, not just because the cast can see the end in sight. Turai the playwright (John Partridge) has told the (unseen) captain how to steer, and the captain sorts out the playscript.
The set is a beauty: two decks of a ship with walls that slide back to reveal a luxurious cabin interior, and realistic views of stormy weather in the second half (design by Colin Richmond). There are some songs by Andre Previn, but the music seemed halfhearted until the end when Stemp and Simon Dutton (Ivor) took to the piano and everything ended with a jolly dance routine.