Farce – a comic dramatic work using buffoonery and horseplay and typically including crude characterisation and ludicrously improbable situations.
So that is what a farce should be – now let’s talk about Jack Milner and Mark Stevenson’s brand new British farce, Octopus Soup, and why the word farce has been hopelessly misused here.
The problem is that most of the situations in the play are about as far from ludicrously improbable as it is possible to get. A stressed out actress hoping to get the lead in a 26 part TV series – very probable, an insurance consultant trying to sell his “new idea” to a corporate boss – also probable and a scam designed to make millions for the perpetrators – 10 a penny these days.
The addition of an inept burglar does add a bit of buffoonery and the characterisations are not only crude but also very one-dimensional, so there are some elements of farce in the piece, but it fails to deliver on the promise so badly that quite a few seats that were occupied in the first act remain vacant after the interval.
Nick Hancock, as Seymour the insurance consultant and Paul Bradley as Marvin the burglar work hard to try and make something of the book, but the lack of any proper laugh-out-loud lines means that it is a real uphill struggle.
Carolyn Backhouse does get a few classic lines as wannabe star Gloria Bignall which is a lot more than can be said for Eric Richard, who plays the underworld boss Alan, and Gillian Bevan who takes on the role of CEO of a global insurance company. They keep the story moving forward, but add little in the way of comedic value to the piece.
The final character in the piece is Marvin’s pet octopus Terry and no, he doesn’t end up as the soup of the title – although one of his relatives does! Terry is quite mesmerising as he moves inside his tank, although having him as a distraction does draw attention away, at times, from the action on the rest of the stage.
If the production had been billed as a gentle comedy then maybe the audience would stay right through to the end and come away a lot happier than they do, but they have come along to the Devonshire Park Theatre to see a farce and, sadly, that is not what is delivered.
** Two Stars