The Nag’s Head – Park Theatre, London

Writers: Felix Grainger and Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson

Director: Alice Chambers

Siblings Jack, Sarah and Connor have returned to their home village to mourn their father, who has died leaving them two things: a rundown pub with next to no customers, and a creepy-looking painting with a reputation for sending people mad.

Felix Grainger and Gabriel Fogarty-Graveson write and star (alongside Cara Steele) in this anarchic comedy, which sees the trio of hapless adults bicker and pester each other as they grapple with how to make their father’s pub a going concern.

The fractured family dynamic is by far the most successful target of the duo’s writing skills, as the reunited adults begin to fall back into their old familial roles. This includes re-enacting “Sibling Court”, a quasi-judicial system for putting one of the trio in their place where the punishment seems to be more about diffusing tension with a bit of dancing.

The family’s attempt to drum up trade for the ailing pub involves marketing it as haunted and is further complicated by Steele’s Sarah determining to secure investment from a chain to turn the Nag’s Head into yet another of the lookalike pubs it owns up and down the country. The satirical swipes are mixed in with supernatural overtones, implying that the (hopefully not litigious) Greene King brewery is so named because it is actually a ritualistic, quasi-magical cult led by a supernatural monarch.

That satire is skewered somewhat by the inherent silliness within Grainger and Fogarty-Graveson’s writing. With every scene, the story takes wackier and wackier turns, with Fogarty-Graveson in particular revelling in some physical comedy as his character, Connor, embarks on a relationship with a ghost.

But as zany as the trio’s comedy gets, the writing never feels quite as sharp as it could be; each punchline arrives with a sense of inevitability. References to the family’s home neighbourhood as “Shire-shire” – presumably to imply the depths of rural England – works as a one-off dismissive throwaway; less so when reused to imply that, no, that is the actual location name.

Coupled with a set design and directorial style that often struggles to effectively realise scenes set outside the main pub environs, The Nag’s Head struggles to hold itself together as a coherent frame in which Grainger, Fogarty-Graveson and Steele can play. This plays through into an ending which is fumbled completely by the intrusion of an unnecessary voiceover.

What saves the entire enterprise is the sheer likability of the cast and the hints that a writing partnership of Grainger and Fogarty-Graveson will only grow stronger. The Nag’s Head – inspired by the true story of a mysterious painting in a Shrewsbury pub of the same name – may not be the greatest distillation of their abilities, but it certainly bodes well for their future.

Continues until 28 October 2023