Love's a Luxury
Orange Tree, London

Mark Tyson

The point of farce is to be funny and make you laugh. Tastes in comedy change and even the best comedies spawn inferior imitatations or lose their ability to shock or surprise. Suffice to say, farce like its near relative suburban sitcom, does tend to have the critics sharpening their knives; there must be a temptation for performers to camp things up and go for kitsch appeal.

Love's a Luxury was first performed in 1942. This production is set in the early 1950s. I don't know if it is fair to say that the usual stereotypes are here; the put-upon husband, the jealous wife, the pretty parlour maid et al. Perhaps this was the height of originality in 1942. Nonetheless the play remains funny and clever even for a modern audience.

There is much to admire about this production, costumes and props are used to good effect, the stage set is imaginative with a nice interior/exterior illusion. In particular, the cast is impressive. The characters are fleshed out and well-rounded, so that there is plenty of character-based humour as well as physical humour and of course farcical misunderstanding. Most importantly this is an unpretentious, funny, feelgood, production.

Till 29 May