A shipwreck; an uninhabited island; a group of men thrown together by circumstance, forced to confront their unaccommodated selves. It’s familiar dramatic fare, but served with a large dollop of humour and a side-order of bathos in Tim Firth’s 1992 comedy, revived here in a production first seen in Chichester last year.
The play’s central joke lies in its setting: the titular island is located not in the middle of the Pacific, but in the Lake District, a mere skip across pike-infested waters from the hotel where our hapless group of Salford middle-managers have set off on an ill-fated corporate bonding exercise. With their one mobile phone rapidly losing power and their provisions non-existent, the men have no choice but to await a rescue that may be some time in coming.
There is much to admire in this production: Robert Innes Hopkins’s stunning set, complete with a fine drizzle, full-size trees, and a portion of lake (audience members in the front row are issued with plastic sheeting to avoid a soaking); and top-notch performances from four of our best comic actors. Adrian Edmondson is particularly funny as the relentlessly acerbic Gordon, but all four have fun wringing the humour from Firth’s script (not to mention the water from their costumes).
It’s a shame, then, that Firth’s characters never quite feel fully formed, and that the emotional denouement fails to convince. There are also some gaping holes in the narrative arc: wouldn’t Miles Jupp’s Angus – a man whose rucksack contains two chopping-boards, a self-igniting stove and a scimitar – have thought to pack a portable phone charger? Still, the laughs come thick and fast enough to make this extended comic skit highly enjoyable.
