It's a familiar set-up. A young dramatist, lured away by television, returns to theatre to mock the medium that now employs him. Toby Whithouse - who, five years ago, opened the Soho Theatre with Jump Mr Malinoff, Jump - conforms to the pattern with a new play bashing the box. While it is intermittently funny, you feel Whithouse is gnawing the hand that feeds him without biting it off.
The play's hero, Duncan, is a nervy, nasty little upstart who hopes to secure his promotion in an independent company by bringing wrestling back to the small screen. To this end he hires a veteran mauler from the heyday of TV wrestling. In the spirit of the times, Duncan transforms his showbiz scrapper from the Count of Monte Cristo into an ageing paedophile known as the Fiddler. However, after the glamour of a trial bout in Leicester, it becomes clear that Duncan is less interested in wrestling than in achieving a leg-up within the company.
Whithouse lands some obvious blows on the bloated body of television. There is a lively showdown debate between Duncan, who believes in the trash he is peddling, and a female PA hungry for quality. But, like Joe Penhall in his attack on tabloid journalism in Dumb Show, Whithouse is hampered by the three-character, 90-minute format: he goes for the minnows rather than the big boys who own and control the medium.
The real pleasure lies in watching Martin Freeman, late of The Office, who reminds us what a brilliant comic actor he is. His Duncan is a bundle of staccato gestures and panic-stricken smiles, confirming that TV companies thrive on a hierarchy of insecurity. And his vain attempt to leap athletically into the wrestling ring is worthy of Woody Allen. John Stahl and Serena Evans provide accomplished back-up in Jonathan Lloyd's production. But the play, while undeniably amusing, offers pinpricks rather than a satirical bloodbath.
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