At RWCMD |
| Welsh College of Music and Drama- the Threesome , Welsh College of Music and Drama , February 13, 2001 |
| IMAGINE Carry On Up The Blue Room (you remember - the 19th Century satire made into a 21st Century West End hit when Nicole Kidman got her kit off) and you have an idea of Eugene Labiche’s satire of adultery that was also a hit last year in Neil Bartlett’s version at the Lyric, Hammersmith. The students at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, I hasten to point out, do keep their clothes on but manage remarkably well to combine the idea of broad, near-the knuckle British sex comedy with the witty, stylised epitome of French farce. Somehow 1870’s social satire and 1960’s bawdiness make for good contemporary fun. Why? Because we can recognise Labiche’s superficial bourgeoisie, where just about everyone is expected to be having an extra-marital affair, in today’s chattering classes and Hello celeb gossip - and we can accept those awful unsubtle shenanigans of Sid James and the rest with the detachment that comes with post-modernist irony, just as we have learned that Tarrantino bloodbaths are not seriously violent. There is a weeny bit of comment behind farces like The Threesome but essentially they offer an antidote to worthy moral melodramas. And in Jamie Garven’s direction here, where the frantic inside-thepants fumblings of a man who has a beetle crawl up his leiderhosen and the enthusiastic polishing of a candel-stick by his busty bare-midriffed frau, would have raised eyebrows a few years ago (and probably not even enacted a few centuries ago), they’re now - well, just funny because they are so corny. So this very entertaining (and delightfully performed) piece of nonsense sits easily within the comic zeitgeist. The cast get the most from each individual character and work well as an ensemble, with an assurance that suggests if they and their colleagues stay around then there will be no shortage of comic actors on the Welsh stage. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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