The Comedy About Spies
Review by Penny
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mischief Theatre have pulled a blinder with The Comedy About Spies’ return to the West End!
This production will have you howling from your seat, barely able to catch your breath as joke after joke tackles you with all the energy of a hapless yet enthusiastic secret agent – though the hit rate of the jokes is much higher than that of the spies in the show!
From the very first moment, we are shown exactly what caliber of relentless side-splitting and groan-inducing comedy to expect throughout of the show. While the chase scenes in particular are a little drawn out and uninteresting, the rest of the show comes together with such brilliantly unhinged pacing and flare. Matt DiCarlo’s direction is a masterclass in the precision and expert timing needed to pull off this slapstick style of comedy with real panache.
It’s such a shame that this production drags on for too long for what’s needed to get the full effect here. Crucially, an interval after over an hour of laugh after laugh makes it very difficult to come back to that headspace as an audience member for act 2! This show would be much better-served as an elongated one-act piece, and could easily do so with a few script cuts – while most of it is comedy gold, it’s not all necessary.
It’s a challenge to pick out just a few of the stellar performances we’re given by this utterly magnificent ensemble, though co-authors Henry Lewis and Henry Shields do offer especially noteworthy turns. Shields’ Bernard is a delightful buffoon, wonderfully reminiscent of Vicar of Dibley’s Hugo, endearing the audience to his character so much so that even amidst the comedic chaos there are moments of profound silence and palpable empathy for his heartbreak! Lewis, on the other hand, never misses a single beat as the obnoxiously oblivious Douglas Woodbead (actor, not cricketer). It is so evident that this comedy runs through his veins as his delivery of every single line is side-splittingly hysterical.
If other Goes Wrong productions weren’t for you, this one will show you exactly what these creatives can do at their best!