The financial prospects of young actors are probably only studied by economists as a horror story. But some recent alumni of Lamda have created, as Mischief Theatre, a hugely lucrative brand. The Play That Goes Wrong, still running in London after three years, was followed by the Olivier-nominated Peter Pan Goes Wrong and now The Comedy About a Bank Robbery.
Whereas the “Goes Wrong” plays featured theatre-related slapstick – ragged props, ratty actors – the new show, much more ambitiously, is a farce that requires some very complicated comedy staging and acting to go exactly right. It does.
Written by Mischief founders Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the play portrays, in the style of a 50s Hollywood comedy, an attempt by a Canadian gang to steal a gem from a Minneapolis bank.
The script contains multiple variations of the gag in Airplane in which the word “surely” is misheard as “Shirley”, although with less verbal sophistication. The presence in the bank of characters apparently called “Robin Threeboys” and “Roger Threeboys” results in the expected conversations.
In visual gags and physical slapstick, though, the show is thrillingly and daringly inventive. Other farceurs have seen the possibilities of a pull-down bed, but the model used here, with a curtained cupboard above and storage space below, conjures up permutations of people in and out of bed that make a threesome seem as standard as the missionary position. There is also an astonishing perspective gag, in which actors remain vertical but are suddenly seen from above.
In a gymnastically enthusiastic cast that combines Mischief long-timers with newcomers, Henry Lewis is outstanding as the volcanically angry bank owner. The sillier stretches of dialogue leave the show just short of One Man, Two Guvnors, its nearest recent rival for laughs per minute. But, if the theory is true that comic entertainment flourishes in unhappy and uncertain times, then this lung-bustingly funny play is just what the therapist ordered.
- At the Criterion, London, until 2 October. Buy tickets at Guardian box office or call 0330 333 6906.
