Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, which captured the anxieties of a generation of young women confused by the expectations piled upon them, announced itself at this address with a bang. This monologue about a middle-aged man facing up to a misspent youth and his failing eyesight, relationship and bank balance arrives with a whimper.
It is amiably dull. Adrian Edmondson and Steve Marmion – who adapted William Leith’s 2008 memoir – never make the case for transposing this from page to stage. Nor do they suggest why we might be gripped by the polite whining of a man who knows that he has messed up his life and has turned to muesli to get things back on track.
You can’t help feeling that there must be something more universal and satirical in the original that has somehow been mislaid, leaving only tired observations about how house prices have tripled while pay rates for journalism have remained static. Maybe the protagonist’s hopeless passivity is the point: there’s a story about him watching a dying mackerel flapping about in a plastic bag that suggests a man incapable of taking action even when staring death in the eye.
Wearing a duffel coat, the softly spoken Edmondson brings a benign quality to the role and resembles a balding, downcast Paddington Bear still waiting to be rescued – in this instance, from himself. Perhaps the purpose is to serve as a warning to a younger generation about what awaits them in middle age, but it’s hard to believe that this introspective, energy-lacking evening would shake anyone out of their apathy.
- At Soho theatre, London, until 3 December. Box office: 020-7478 0100.
