One of the few things more tiresome than doing the Hoovering is watching people squabble over a Hoover. Unlike the Walter Matthau/Jack Lemmon film of Neil Simon's Broadway hit, Elijah Moshinsky's lacklustre production is no comedy classic: at several points over the two hours it feels like more of a chore than dusting the skirting boards.
Part of the trouble is that this tale doesn't translate well to women. The character of Felix Unger in the original Odd Couple is, if not unlikely, then at least sufficiently unlike the male stereotype (perfectly represented by his slovenly, sports-loving friend Oscar Madison) for his neurotic behaviour to appear amusingly incongruous. His counterpart in the female version, the prissy, pernickety Florence is merely an irksome caricature. Nor is there anything unfamiliar about her opposite number, Olive: she may wipe the spills from her Budweiser with her sandwich, but ultimately she complains of her biological clock ticking, just as all single 35-year-old women are supposed to do.
There are no surprises either from their assembled friends - a hard-nosed cop, a histrionic, a ditz and a woman with the tongue of a viper, although the conflict between the last two at least provides one of the evening's fiercer gags: "Did you ever think about taking speed so you can keep up with us?"
We're left with the peculiar spectacle of a play purportedly about women and their friendships, probably produced for women to see with their friends, being stolen by the too-brief appearance of two gormless men. As the Spanish brothers Manolo and Jesus, Qarie Marshall and Vincent Carmichael make a winning double act, delivering the pair's contorted proverbs with an array of engagingly silly grins. There is a lightness about their performances that Jenny Seagrove and Paula Wilcox as Olive and Florence desperately need; at the moment, their potentially sparkling lines are being rendered flat and dull.
But then, there is only so much comic value in watching two women tut and scowl as one drops her coat on the floor and the other fussily hangs it up. Good theatre tells us about ourselves, our relationships, our world, but Simon's play is more like Good Housekeeping: it tells us only that it's never too late to learn the neatest way to fold a towel.
Booking to June 16. Box office: 020-7494 5070.
