Writer: Mark Jagasia
Director: Oscar Pearce
Mark Jagasia’s farce, The Double Act, is stuffed with comic invention. It has a distinctly Inside Number 9 vibe with its setting in a single room where normality gradually turns comedy gothic. We’re in a shabby sitting room in the shabby northwestern seaside town of Saltmouth. 40 years ago, Biddle and Bash were a beloved double act. Billy Bash has since continued a successful solo career and has come to Saltmouth’s end of the pier theatre for one night only before setting off for the delights of a beach holiday with his missus. It’s his fifth missus, it transpires. It doesn’t surprise us to learn that Billy’s brash sexist, homophobic brand of humour comes directly from his own nasty, bullying personality.
Cliff Biddle, on the other hand, once Noddy to Bash’s Big Ears, is a timid creature, his life ruined by whatever it was that broke the duo apart. He’s lucky to have a lodger, Gulliver, a longtime fan, who is adoringly attentive to Cliff’s every need. ‘He’s my angel,’ Cliff tells Billy, inadvertently setting up the good angel-bad angel dynamic of the first act. For Billy, played with gusto by Nigel Betts, is paying a sour visit to Cliff after 40 years.
But the problem with his characterisation is that we never glimpse Billy’s onstage persona, never see the funny man that still attracts audiences. Cliff, however, in a tremendous performance by Nigel Cooke, emerges from his cocoon at the chance to play live on stage. Can he, for one night only, reprise his favourite comedy role as one of the Whoopsie Boys? There’s a nice whiff of blackmail as Cliff hints he’s been dictating his revealing memoirs to Gulliver.
This first act takes an hour to set up, and therein lies the problem. The zaniness of the plot of The Double Act certainly has its joyous moments, but as its twists and turns grow increasingly labyrinthine, the comedy threatens to thin out. It feels as if Jagasia is trying to shoe-horn every contemporary issue into a structure that needs to be light as a bubble. Somehow the play’s supposed to be about political shifts since the 70s with Brexit its nadir. The new Trump administration gets a gentle kicking too. While the targets are legitimate, their comic potential just isn’t strong enough. It shouldn’t be much of a spoiler alert – there’s been an imaginary snake from the off – to say that Gulliver reveals his devilish side. And it’s Edward Hogg’s inspired performance that brings this absurd twist to life. He’s enormously watchable as he transforms from matinee-idol camp to maniacal Machiavelli.
There’s so much to love about The Double Act, but it lacks the witty compression of Inside Number 9.
Runs until 22 February 2025
