Play It Again, Sam

Corpus Playroom, Tue 5^th – Sat 9^th, 7pm, £6/5.

I think it’s basically impossible to play a character originally played by Woody Allen and not just come off as doing a Woody Allen impression. He’s just too fucking unique. But to give him his due, Matthew Fellows tries really, really hard, injecting his version of the neurotic of neurotics with a touch more innocent insecurity than the boisterous man himself.

The plot is a simple but comically ripe one; our hero, Allan, played by Fellows, has just been left by his wife and is struggling to cope with dating again, despite the support of his best friend, Dick, and his wife, Linda. Olivia Morgan, Katie McCrudden and Joanna Vymeris play Allan’s various disastrous dates with aplomb, and this sequence had the audience laughing consistently.

Dick, played by Paul Clarkson, is always busy with work and so Allan and Linda end up spending a lot of time together. The rest of the play wrings the “Should I have an affair with my best friend’s wife?” comedic setup for all it’s worth, getting laughs from every permutation through fantasy sequences in Allan’s head, the best of which involves a swordfight in Spanish.

The play is at its finest when Linda and Allan are slowly and nervously flirting, and Allan is trying to decide whether to kiss her. Georgie Henley gives a confident and assured performance as Linda, and Justin Wells’ Humphrey Bogart (a figment of Allan’s cinema obsessed mind) makes the interplay between Allan and Linda hilarious as he constantly interjects to critique Allan’s moves or offer often wildly inappropriate suggestions.

The piece benefits from being relatively short; although Fellows carries the play admirably, the sheer amount of time he has to spend on stage alone delivering what are essentially long, neurotic monologues does mean that at times momentum is lost. That said, Peter Lunga’s direction is on the whole very sharp; he does try to keep this relatively static play alive, and the fantasy scenes are expertly blended into the narrative.

Overall, it’s a highly relaxing, even if not revelatory or particularly heart-quickening, night out at the theatre. It’s funny, it’s quaint (some of the dialogue is really dated, and the less said about the rape jokes the better…), and all the actors are giving it their all, especially poor Fellows.

If you want an easy if not uproarious laugh, this is the play for you.