There’s an ironic twist to the title of Owen McCafferty’s play, presented in association with the Lyric Belfast and the Abbey Dublin. It deals with a raw, talented young standup, Steve, who makes a Faustian bargain with fame and, in the process, sells his soul and dilutes his talent. Much as I enjoyed it, it has the black-and-white simplicity of a morality play.
To his credit, McCafferty shows his protagonist at work. We first see Steve doing abrasive political monologues at a low-rent comedy store with the enthusiastic support of his loyal girlfriend. Under the tutelage of a manipulative agent, Steve is gradually turned into a showbiz success, peddling profitable lies to large audiences. Like Trevor Griffiths in Comedians, McCafferty links the funny business to the wider world by suggesting that rampant capitalism demands a perpetuation of stereotypes and a bland escapism. But, while I applaud the message, McCafferty never admits there might be a middle ground between comic truthfulness and mass-market evasion. Off-stage, Steve also seems a strangely passive figure who leaves it to his girlfriend to act as his troubled conscience.
McCafferty’s strength is that he is good with detail, such as the pressure on Steve to engage in charity marathons to promote a benign image and, on the way, a climactic gag undergoes a progressive softening to satisfy the popular market. Steve Marmion’s production also captures the stage-by-stage process of the hero’s incremental prostitution and the acting is first-rate.
Brian Doherty perfectly shows Steve’s transformation from ebullient truth-teller to slickly packaged popular success and there is good support from Shaun Dingwall as the dapper Mephistophelian agent and from Katie McGuinness as the increasingly disenchanted girlfriend.
Even if McCafferty never acknowledges that it is possible to be both politically honest and widely popular, he packs a lot into 80 minutes and confirms that comedy is no laughing matter.
• At Soho theatre until 16 May. Box Office: 020-7478 0100.
