THEATRE

I’m not sure what anyone coming to this show totally cold would have made of it. I think they may have struggled, but for lovers of Radio 4s Ed Reardon’s Week, such as myself, it was a joy, but I expected to see it listed under comedy rather than theatre.

Part of the joke is the sheer incompetence of the main character, played by Christopher Douglas, who sees himself as a great writer who for some reason the rest of the world has failed to recognise and everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault.

It starts with a recording of back stage chatter where nothing is right and it’s all the fault of the Pleasance staff.  Eventually Douglas/Reardon comes on stage and tells us his life story, from the time he was forced to watch ITV on its opening night rather than listen to The Archers on Radio 4 – or as he would point out in those days it was the Home Service. We go through his early years when he forms and writes for Theatre in a Basket. Were there really theatre companies so enthusiastic yet so bad in the 1970s? And we get to where he is today, a frustrated ghost writer living in Berkhampstead that nobody takes seriously.

He seemed in this production all together more successful than his Radio 4 self. At least he is getting the ghost writing. There are some remarkably good literary jokes in this show but you don’t need to get them to enjoy it.  An enjoyable hour at the Fringe.