Writer: Van Badham
Director: Sally Woodcock
Van Badhams Banging Denmark has to be one of the funniest, most inventive comedies around. And only a writer of Van Badham’s calibre can get such an unstoppable stream of humour from a topic as edgy as a sort of brand ambassador to a deeply misogynistic online incel community clashing with some committed feminists. Guy De Witt presents his phone-in radio show from his yacht. Or so he claims as he dishes out advice to a stream of men angry that they can’t get a woman. But in fact, he’s Jake, a suitably brooding Tom Kay, broadcasting from his scruffy sitting room, discarded pairs of underpants soldered to the floor.
In a certain way, he’s living the life, using the rules of toxic masculinity to find his way into the beds of endless women who are quickly discarded. He has a strategy for each Exit Conversation, spinning a particular one-night stand as being extra special because ‘it didn’t last long.’ But Jake’s hardened cynicism takes a knock when he meets Anna, a cool and wonderfully humourless Danish librarian, elegantly and comically played by Maja Simonsen, who is immune to his suite of chat-up lines. Then he tries ‘negging’ her, pointing out as a fact that Danish women are basically frigid. Unsurprisingly, this too fails.
Meanwhile across the tiny stage is another scruffy room – this time a university photocopying room. Here we meet Ishtar, brilliantly played by Rebecca Blackstone. She’s a sociology lecturer who has wrecked her career by laying into De Witt, attracting not just an army of trolls, but a lawsuit which has left her penniless. Hence she is sleeping in the photocopying room.. Extrovert, outlandish and somewhat lacking in normal boundaries, Ishtar is a fabulous creation. With low impulse control, she gobbles up any food that comes her way, unselfconsciously wiping herself down with wet wipes, and sporting a dreadful trapper’s hat.
Somehow, in the way of rom-coms, Jake meets Ishtar, so desperate for her advice on how to win the Danish librarian that he’s prepared to offer a serious wodge of cash. Obviously, the deal is unethical, so we cheer when it only takes Ishtar a few minutes to accept the challenge and snatch up the pile of £50 notes.
The scenes in which Ishtar attempts to coach Jake in the art of wooing are priceless. She reckons he’ll get much further by introducing the topic of marginal tax rates: ‘it’s basic dialectics’. (Shakespeare missed a trick not getting a tax-based joke into the love coaching in As You Like It). Meanwhile Jake admits to his previously failsafe five-step seduction technique. It’s even funnier when we see another character unexpectedly adopting the same strategy.
Meanwhile, we are also shown friendship in action with Ishtar’s innocent friends, Denise and Toby, likeably played by Jodie Tyack and James Jip. They’re obviously made for each other, but neither dares speak out. All five actors work in perfect harmony, Sally Woodcock’s zippy direction making for endless comic fun.
That classic comic plot, the couple who start off hating each other – think Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet or Beatrice and Benedict – feels completely fresh and new in Banging Denmark. And somehow, amidst all the gags, the sweetness of the pair of love stories rings true. A charming and hilarious evening.
Runs until 11 May 2024
