Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell – The Coach & Horses, London

Writer: Keith Waterhouse

Director: James Hiller

There is something undeniably pleasing about watching Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell in the very pub in which it is set. The Coach & Horses, skirting the edge of Soho and famous for being an old journalistic haunt, lends the evening an immediate authenticity. The audience fills the pub furniture, pints in hand and the boundary between audience and performance dissolves into something approaching genuine boozy camaraderie. It is not a surprise when Jeffrey (played by Robert Bathurst) staggers in. The conceit does much of the production’s work for it, grounding the play in the Soho it mythologises.

Written by Keith Waterhouse in 1989, the script remains charming, even affectionate. It may not inspire much love for the errant journalist at its centre, but it does stir something warmer for Soho itself. There is a romantic pull to the idea of finding home amid the gutters and dirt, of staking out belonging in the corners of a city that rarely pauses for anyone. That theme still resonates, especially with a late-night Monday crowd. At its best, the writing is very funny, dry and cutting without tipping into sentimentality. Some references, inevitably, feel closed off to those who were not present in 1980s London. The humour sometimes assumes a shared memory that no longer exists, but the play’s affection for its setting carries it through.

Robert Bathurst gives a finely controlled performance as Bernard. The drunkenness never slips into caricature. Instead, there is exhaustion in him, a bone-deep weariness well earned. Bathurst handles the crowd with ease, riding the laughter and quiet alike, and maintaining an intimacy that suits the room. The lighting, too, is effective. Mainly a stage under pub house lights, but with some effective, if underused, theatre lighting that brings us into other spaces. 

Yet the evening struggles with rhythm. The script and the performance of it maintain much the same tempo throughout. Without variation in pace or emotional stakes, the play begins to feel longer than it is. There is little in the way of a driving narrative. Anecdotes accumulate, drinks are poured, grievances aired, but momentum rarely builds. As time passes and Bernard himself becomes a less familiar cultural figure, the reliance on recognition grows more precarious.

The direction by James Hiller lacks focus. Lighting is underused as a storytelling tool, while props are fussed over to diminishing returns. What is missing is a clear sense of shape,  an arc that might sharpen the humour and deepen the melancholy already present in the text.

Still, as an experience, it is hard to resist. To sit in the Coach & Horses, listening to stories of Soho-past while Soho-present hums outside, is a genuine treat. The production may not fully justify its revival, but it captures, for an evening at least, the stubborn romance of finding home in the city’s chaos.

Runs until 23 March 2026