This double-bill is currently running at Theatre at the Tabard, and brings together Noel Coward’s Red Peppers with Cian Griffin’s new play Aged in Wood. Produced by OnBook Theatre, both plays are set in the theatre.
They are light comedies, one set in 1936 and one in the present day, in the same location. It makes for an interesting pairing in which the shorter Coward piece is an amusing starter for the main course of Griffin’s script.
Red Peppers is about a variety act, husband and wife, who have found themselves on the bottom half of the bill with their old-fashioned musical comedy act of groaning jokes and pastiche songs.
They sport vivid red wigs and perform their act (a creaky sailor act and a pair of London swells) either side of an interlude in their dressing room.
Jessica Martin and Jon Osbaldeston capture the fading, bickering pair who have been needling each other so long they have forgotten how to be nice.
Originally presented within the Tonight at 8.30 series of Coward plays, Red Peppers is fun and allows the six-strong cast of the evening to do some pointed character bits.
Emma Vansittart is hilarious as a delicate and deluded diva, while Philip Gill (who joined the cast at the last minute and made his debut in the play last night) is excellent as the musical director who huffs at the mere suggestion his tempo is off.
Dominic McChesney plays the theatre manager with a sense of diminished grandeur.
Aged in Wood takes place in the here and now. The dressing room doesn’t have the artists living out of trunks, but otherwise not much has changed.
Deena Ames (Martin) a former musical theatre actress of a certain age now working in the provinces, deals with several personal and professional problems.
Her son (Rhys Cannon) looks better in her clothes than she does, her husband, Henry (Osbaldeston) has walked out, her leading man, Rufus (a hilarious Gill) can’t remember his lines.
Griffin has taken aim at recent theatre trends (Deena is offered a part which she describes as “a slut and a paedophile”; a producer “can’t wait” to remove an original director credit from a poster and production).
Deena and her agent Avis (Vansittart) offer a shorthand view of a long relationship based on half-truths, flattery, and tolerance, while Henry offers an insight into the battle between career ambition and those leftat home.
McChesney has a nicely crafted role as a fading producer who hasn’t had a hit in years.
Directed by Jason Moore, these plays offer a wry look behind the scenes of show people and explore the humour to be had from these larger than life personalities.
Red Peppers has a deep nostalgia for the greasepaint and competitive streak of performers on their uppers, while Aged in Wood explores the problems of putting on a show for laughs (a Rufus this inept would surely be out of the door in seconds).
An entertaining evening of small-scale vignettes, offering nothing substantial in plot but leaving us smiling. Two stories in the same dressing room.
I’m giving this 3.5 stars.
Red Peppers and Aged in Wood continue at Theatre at the Tabard until 21 Jun. Tickets here.
Image credit: Lena Omra