The Stage

Not so raunchy after all

Published Monday 23 August 2010 at 14:24

One also happens to find plenty of critics up in Edinburgh.

One such, Michael Coveney of The Independent, appears to have got a little hot under the collar at the sight of one-time glamour girl Abi Titmuss appearing in a revival of John Godber’s Up ‘n’ Under at the Assembly Rooms.

While it is, of course, a critic’s job to be fully up to snuff on an artist’s prior work, one feels that it is perhaps Coveney’s intimate knowledge of Titmuss’ back catalogue that has led him to be so disappointed in this production.

“With Abi Titmuss cast as a gym instructor in a play whose title might suggest some full-on, raunchy locker-room action, it’s almost disappointing to report that Abi’s a model of rectitude, not e-rectitude, in John Godber’s charmingly naive 1984 rugby league fable,” he writes.

“She handles the balls pretty well, which you’d expect, but she dispatches Godber’s mock Shakespearean Chorus speeches pretty well, too. And she even remarks that an unexpected win for the team she’s training up would amount to ‘a tabloid dream’ without any ironic reference to herself. It gets worse, lads - she frowns primly at a suggestion that team bonding might best continue in the shower room.”

Perhaps the Assembly Rooms might like to think about installing some air-conditioning for Michael’s next visit.