Mischief Theatre who invented their own brand of comedy mishaps with “The Play that Goes Wrong” and Olivier nominated “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” return to the stage with a much anticipated follow up “The comedy About a Bank Robbery” which was jam-packed with fun capers, wordplay double-entendres and slapstick humour to brighten up a dreary Glasgow November evening.
The play is written by founding members of Mischief Theatre Henry Lewis, Jonathon Sayer and Henry Shields. The plotline flows between farcical scenes, calamities and misunderstandings as the mean and moody jailbird Mitch (Liam Jeavons) teams up with Cooper (David Coomber) a corrupt but totally useless prison guard. Along the way they reluctantly tie in flirtatious gold digger Caprice and her new lover Sam to help them to plan the heist of a priceless diamond owned by a Hungarian Prince. In order to seize the diamond and make their millions, they must devise a cunning plan to break into the shamelessly disorganised bank of Caprice’s father Mr Freeboys and make their escape into the sunset as millionaires.
The play has a Hollywood 1950s theme with glamourous sassy characters introducing acapella 50s style swing tracks throughout. It is very much a screwball comedy crime production mixed in with slapstick British humour – think Monty Python and Fawlty Towers meets Lethal Weapon and National Lampoons. The first act takes a while to warm up with perhaps slightly over-egged humour around wordplay. One liners such as “When he was arrested what was he charged with?” “Adrenalin” became a little over used. However as soon as the story is up and running it is filled with hilarity and the ridiculous mishaps which keeps the audience engaged all the way through.
The hysterical bedroom scene as Caprice and Sam try to deceive Mitch about their illicit affair with beautifully timed slapstick humour, ludicrous charades, impressive gags and a mechanical dysfunctioning fold up bed had the audience in stitches. The three actors deliver a seamless performance and their high energy and flawless comic timing were to be commended.
An exceptional performance was given by George Hannigan who played a number of different characters – in one spectacular scene delivering a performance as three individual characters engaged in a brawl! No mean feat, however Hannigan delivered this with style and plenty of hilarity. His immediate transition from one character to the next was seamless and cleverly staged. The calamities continue throughout as the mayhem unfolds and the laughs keep coming as this slick production had the audience continually guessing what was going to happen next.
The staging of this play involved plenty of tricks and clever set design to keep the audience fully involved in the storyline. An example is in the second half the stage transforms into a birds eye view of the office with a set that is fixed high up at a 90 degree angle to the stage. The clever and effective set design is one of the main selling points of the play.
The Comedy About a Bank Robbery looks set to have longetivity on stage and will certainly guarantee fun, laughter and hilarity for many more runs to come.