Martha is dead but no longer buried. Angry but dim animal rights activists Jago and Marc have dug up her remains in an attempt to persuade Martha’s son Gerry to sell the family’s frog-farming business. But Gerry has a new project: growing cannabis plants impregnated with cane toad venom for an extra hallucinogenic kick. Things are further complicated by the arrival of Gerry’s brother Roger and manipulative niece Caro. Everyone has a skeleton that they want to keep hidden.
David Spicer’s comedy raises a few laughs, and there are plenty of deft one-liners. But while it’s farce-like, it’s never quite as riotously funny as it should be in a production by Michael Fentiman that is more comfortable with text than with scenes requiring any physicality. The fights are bungled.
The show is more interested in getting to the next funny line than making any philosophical point, whether it’s about animal rights, civil liberties, or the rise of rocket and grape sandwiches. Occasionally it spins off into unlikely psychedelic territory: scenes with 6ft frogs are fun but a dramatic cul-de-sac in a show in desperate need of a more compelling motor than its central character and narrator, Inspector Clout (Jeff Rawle), provides. Clout hails from a long line of bungling stage policemen, but when it comes to both inept detectives and farce, Joe Orton has done it better.
• At Park theatre, London, until 11 February. Box office: 020-7870 6876.
