In the Devonshire Theatre and Talking Scarlet’s latest offering, a 1960’s Marc Camoletti farce called Boeing Boeing, we get to live the impossible dream: well, someone’s impossible dream anyway, but probably not yours or mine.
Bernard (Ben Roddy) is a successful architect living in a nice apartment in Paris. He’s the sort of man who wants it all, and it seems he’s getting his wish. Using his ‘bible’, the international flight timetable, he manages to fit three women in his life, all air hostesses, and all believing that they’re engaged to him.
There’s Gretchen, the aggressive German one; Gloria, the confident American one; and Gabrielle, the sexy French one. With help from his sanguine housekeeper/maid, Bertha (Anita Graham is the spit of Janet Street-Porter with a grey pigtailed wig, lurid mustard tights and a very advanced case of pigeon toe), he juggles the women, using a carefully worked out system of jotting down times and dates in a notepad (we are back in the 60s, remember).
Into this mix is thrown two things: Robert (Philip Stewart), an old school chum of Bernard’s who appears out of the blue, and a new flight timetable. Boeing jets are being upgraded and are much faster than they were, leaving his note-taking scheme all awry. What’s a playboy to do? Keep calm and carry on, so Bernard thinks, though Robert and Bertha have their doubts as to his scheme’s continuing feasibility.
The fact that there are five doors off the minimalist living room set would have given you a clue that this was a farce even if you hadn’t glanced at the programme, and very soon people are jumping into or being pushed through said doors at an alarming rate, as one girl after another appears before her ‘allotted time’.
Much is made of the girls skimpy attire (all three are – barely – dressed in the primary colours of their respective airlines), although this isn’t an in your face issue. This is the new ‘toned down farce’. I can imagine what an original production of this play would have been like and I shudder but here we have a few leers at boobs and bums, a couple of chaste kisses, and the hint of a hard-on. The action is concentrated less on what the girls look like and a lot more on the men making arses of themselves. Robert, especially, goes to great lengths to hide his pal’s secret polygamy from the girls and you wonder why after all this time he’s suddenly turned up and become such a loyal friend. Could it have anything to do with Robert being jealous of Bernard’s lifestyle? You bet it could.
Belligerent Bertha (“I’m a cheerful soul at heart. I like a bit of fun”) mopes around in the first act like a sardonic wet weekend, while Robert uses a red C-shaped foam chair to comedic purpose. He jumps on it, flips it over, curls up on it, uses it as a trampoline and ends up sprawling. It is, in fact, a great prop, and Stewart is fantastic at this type of comedy. He’s the one your eye is drawn to, not the dolly birds in bum-skimming skirts.
It’s not devoid of emotion either, although these affairs of the heart are a bit on the shabby side. Gradually, as the second half develops, we can see how it’s going to end not quite on a happy note, but in a loose ends nicely tied up sort of conclusion. It’s a little cheap, but this is isn’t Chekhov.
The piece isn’t played at lightening speed, but the pace is just fast enough, and director Patric Kearns holds the cast back nicely. These sorts of affairs can go over the top so very easily, but he reigns it all back and keeps it (excuse the airline pun) grounded.
I can guarantee this most sophisticated thing you’ll see all year – unless your only other theatre outing is a panto – but for what it is, a silly but clever farce for an undemanding audience who have forgone the evening Eastbourne sunshine, it works perfectly. It’s theatrical chewing gum: it tastes nice for the duration, but you’re quite glad to spit it out when it’s job is done. Oh, and Bernard lets a soda syphon off and you can’t get more classic farce than that!
What: Boeing Boeing by Talking Scarlet
Where: Devonshire Park Theatre, Compton Street, Eastbourne
When: Until 13 July at 7.45pm with Wednesdays and Saturday matinees at 2.30pm
Tickets: £14.50-£20.50
For more information, CLICK HERE: http://www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk/What%27s_On/show.asp?showID=2756