London, 2022. The streets echo to the sound of gunfire. Lewisham and Croydon, like the other former boroughs, are at war with each other. Big Ben has been silenced for ever. Inside a suite at the smart Regal Hotel, Poopay, a state-registered dominatrix, has been summoned to provide specialist services to Reece Welles, an elderly man on his last legs. But Reece requires a particularly special service. He is desperate to get Poopay to witness his confession to the murders of his two wives: the first, Jessica, for her money; the second, Ruella, because she was going to blow the whistle on his illegal business dealings with his corrupt partner, Julian. In each case, it was actually Julian who did the deed.
Now Poopay is in big trouble as Julian returns to the suite and discovers what is going on. Poopay succeeds in hiding the confession in the bidet, but looks certain to be Julian's next murder victim - until a door she runs through takes her 20 years into the past, where Ruella is staying in the same hotel suite on the night of her murder. The capable Ruella soon discovers that, through the same door, she can travel back another 20 years to the same hotel room, where Reece is spending his honeymoon with his young bride, Jessica, who in seven years' time will be murdered by Julian. Ruella and Poopay set out to change history, save Jessica and, thus, themselves.
Soon, sudden death is being narrowly avoided, a man's moral integrity is saved and a sad prostitute is transformed into a happy daughter, wife and mother. It is a lovely thought, but it lasts two-and-a-half hours and I did not believe a word of it in this slack production. Alan Ayckbourn's play is silly, not funny and almost completely unaffecting.
This is one instance in which the playwright's much-admired ingenuity overreaches itself. The tricks with time do not aid the drama and actually hinder the emotional connections of the characters with each other and the audience. Ayckbourn plays puppet master, manipulating his characters and the audience. The result is a play that is all plot device and no content.
· Until February 15. Box office: 01722 320333.
