The Stage

Threesome

Published Monday 25 January 2010 at 17:35 by Evelyn Curlet

Billed as a cautionary tale about internet dating, Threesome revolves around two spoilt and vacuous Sloanes, Poppy and Bella. Cut off from daddy’s funds, maxed out on their credit cards and with an impending dinner party to pay for, they determine to raise money by prostituting themselves to a stranger befriended on Facebook.

Poppy and Bella are obvious stereotypes - posh, shallow, fashion-fixated, self-obsessed and very stupid. Rachel Chambers and Shirley Leigh-Wood Oakes flesh out the thin characters well, managing to inject a much-needed dose of charm into otherwise repugnant caricatures. It’s essentially a sex farce, with the girls spending much of their stage time in stockings and suspenders, while Freddie Lancaster takes on the role of Colin, a greasy pervert and Phil Collins fanatic. Lancaster’s dance to In the Air Tonight stands out as the most ludicrously silly moment in the show and prompts a half-horrified, half-hysterical response from the audience. This scene in particular had a tendency to veer between sordid slapstick and disturbing bad drama, a peculiar combination.

To its credit, Threesome is never dull and is well-performed by the cast, who commit to the writing with admirable aplomb. It has a couple of genuinely funny moments, but for the most part it relies on an absurd situation and lazy stereotypes - the girls are dim bimbos, the man paying for sex is an overweight northerner, the pizza delivery man is a Muslim called Sheikh Ma Boobies, and so on. It’s not British humour at its finest.