In 1966, England performed well in a football tournament and a promising director, Braham Murray, made his mark with a production of Charley's Aunt featuring a young buck called Tom Courtenay. Murray's form has proved the more consistent and now he revives Brandon Thomas's venerable, cross-dressing comedy as a summer alternative to complaining about the football.
Thomas's farce broke all box office records when it appeared in 1892, and was arguably responsible for the concept of tie-in marketing. The playwright's son reported "all kinds of souvenirs were made in its honour – there were Charley's Aunt paper knives, ink bottles, nibs, dolls, pen wipers", but the play's endurance has less to do with literary quality than the British public's inexhaustible delight in the spectacle of a man running round in a dress.
The part was custom-made for the D'Oyly Carte comedian WS Penley, whose skirts have since been filled by a parade of stars led by Jack Benny and Norman Wisdom, with Blue Peter's Mark Curry bringing up the rear. Now it is the turn of Oliver Gomm to give a bug-eyed performance as the transgendered dowager whose Brazilian lineage gives rise to any number of mildly risque jokes about nuts.
Gomm's performance is not without indulgence – steer clear of the front rows unless you welcome the prospect of a hyperactive actor in widow's weeds landing in your lap. But he wins a deserved round of applause for his athletic means of entering a petticoat with a flying header.
He is ably supported by a well-organised cast who contribute individual moments of skill while proving that Charley's Aunt is essentially a team game.
