Another very Bonne Noel from the Menier
For Christmas the Menier offers Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels.
This was his second London production after The Vortex, staged - and set - in 1925, a hundred years ago, and was a French (style) Farce (a genre missing from the London stage) and one which only just scraped past the Lord Chamberlain, who did recognise a satirical Farce when it bit him, although the subject – the past infidelities of two ‘respectable’ ladies - was extremely risqué, and hence risky, for the time.
The lines are very funny, the acting even funnier, with Janie Dee and Alexandra Gilbreath, as the ladies, excelling – although Sarah Twomey as the Plautian servant (far wiser and more competent than her mistresses, and masters) steals a number of scenes.
Coward’s writing skills are directed mainly to the women in the cast, the men are rather more bluff reactors.
The set is perfectly period – a stylish living room in a mansion flat and the action, over 2 days, is both broadly inconsequential and hilarious. The necessary misunderstandings are all there, as are the broad sequences of farce supported by some of the best drunk acting (of man or woman, but these were women) that I have seen for some time.
I would be hugely surprised if this doesn’t (1) sell out – it may already have done so - and (2) transfer. If you can, and you want an entirely frivolous evening of fun, see it.