The Stage

Tom, Dick and Harry

Published Thursday 25 August 2005 at 16:40 by Peter Hepple

Devoted as I am to the works of Ray Cooney - in fact I think that his previous farce in the West End, Caught in the Net, was one of his best - Tom, Dick and Harry is a grievous disappointment.

Written in partnership with his son Michael, it is not that his skill as an architect of farce has deserted him. For sheer convolution his latest is hard to beat, involving as it does a couple desperate to adopt a child, the husband’s two scapegrace brothers hovering on the fringe of criminality, a couple of Kosovan refugees, the inevitable deceived wife and a puzzled policeman.

It is rather that the Cooneys for once hover on the brink of bad taste. Asylum seekers are not really funny and neither is a dismembered corpse in a bin bag, a key prop in a play that is also addicted to smutty jokes. These elements may be all right as ingredients in a standup comedian’s performance but are hardly suitable as vital components in a full-length production aimed, I presume, at the family trade.

But there is no denying that Ray Cooney, as director, and his cast go at it with a will and three of the McGann brothers prove to be accomplished farceurs. Joe is the serious one and the pivot of the plot, hingeing on his and his wife’s desperate desire to become parents. Stephen is the one whose cheerful criminal tendencies lead him to smuggle cigarettes and booze and, inadvertently, human beings into the country. Mark is the inventive idiot of the trio, over-anxious to be helpful but only successful at making matters worse.

There is some sturdy support work from Louise Jameson as the prickly lady from the adoption agency, Brian Greene as the elderly refugee, stuck with the obligatory drunk scene, and Hannah Waterman as the harassed and deceived wife. In fact, all concerned deserve praise but more for effort than effectiveness.