Playwright, composer, director and performer Noël Coward was
known for his flamboyance and comedic wit – two things that are missing from
this ‘naughty’ night from Proud Haddock Productions.
It comprises two of Coward’s plays – We Were Dancing(1935) and
The Better Half (1921) – that both
concern extramarital affairs. In the former, a married woman falls in love with
a man she’s just met, though they soon realise they have nothing in common and
their spark soon fizzles. In the latter, a woman is stuck in an unhappy
marriage and encourages (in a back handed manner) her husband to embark on an
affair. Both plays, then, explore the superficiality of marriage and the
impossibility of women, set in the elegant high society of so much of Coward’s
work. The women are in control and the men merely helpless pawns in their love games.
The total running time is just over an hour for both plays,
meaning these are little more than frivolous sketches. Together they parallel
one another and suggest an overarching theme, but even in the short running
time they feel like one joke stretched out. These are far from Coward’s best
work – if anything they are a snapshot back in time, providing an intriguing
look into his lesser known work, whilst failing to prove their relevance.
Each play is led by an excellent performer. Lianne Harvey
amuses as Louise Charteris in We Were
Dancing, evoking a naïve and hopeless romantic caught between two men – her
past and future. In The Better Half,
Tracey Pickup offers a tour-de-force performance as Alice, setting a frantic
pace that drives the narrative flow. And in both plays Tom Self provides some
musical accompaniment using Coward’s own songs. As a whole, though, the cast
lack the chemistry to really bring out the comedy, producing titters rather
than laughter from the audience. The two plays are bizarre and the performances
border on eccentric – but the night as a whole is not bizarre or eccentric
enough to really come alive.
2/5
Watch: A Naughty Night
with Noël Coward runs at the Old
Red Lion Theatre until 29th August.
Photos: Ben Coverdale
