Review: French Toast (Riverside Studios)

Review by Harry Bower

⭐️⭐️

In 1977 at the Théâtre des Variétés in Paris, the author of firm crowd-pleasing play-adapted-into-musical La Cage aux Folles opened his latest production: Broadway Fefe. Jean Poiret never saw his play performed again, though there is a theatre recording floating around on DVD. When he died in 1992 he may not have imagined that some thirty years later it would be dusted off, rewritten for English language and context, and staged in London one rainy October. Yet staged it is! French Toast is that adaptation, a farcical comedy now playing at Riverside Studios.

If I had to explain this show in four words I’d go for “French”, “English”, “Effortless” and “Try-Hard”. That those four (and a half) words are in complete conflict with one another is a good way to describe just how much of a contradiction it ends up being. 

It’s 1997 when Jacqueline Bremont, an insufferable diva from France’s theatre scene decides to invest in a new production in England - a sure-fire way of getting hired when the gigs are drying up. The West End? Not quite; it’s in Basingstoke we find our cast of misfit actors gathered for a common cause - to make director Simon Monk’s masterpiece come to life. Only there’s a challenge, in that Simon and Jacqueline are ex-lovers, and the power is in the latter’s gift in terms of making the production happen and resurrecting his career. It’s very English in its smattering of self-deprecating humour and sarcasm, and incredibly French in its outward confidence and ambition. Throw in a couple of slapstick stereotypes from the 70s, some often very clever and amusing cultural banter and you’ve got yourself a solid foundation for a comedy. 

There are significant contradictions in both its writing and performances. The opening scenes feature a few dodgy accents, unpolished characteristics, shoddy props and unflattering set sightlines. Then, there is steady improvement in all of the above and toward the end of the piece the ensemble scenes are brilliantly executed by all involved. In terms of writing there are some genuinely brilliant throwaways, characters drawn with depth and intricacy, a sense of humour which is finely refined, and a satisfying redemption arc. And, yet, so much of the long hour and forty minutes is cluttered and inconsequential and would benefit from a haircut.

Performances range from solid to over-acting, a huge spectrum of quality largely directly informed by the inconsistency in the writing. A lot of the acting is intentionally over the top because the performers in the play-within-a-play are supposed to be bad. That works really well when there’s a clear distinction between the intentional bad acting and reality (ie when the ‘play’ is not rehearsing). Unfortunately that’s not always the case in French Toast. Suzy Kohane and Josie Benson deserve credit for injecting a sense of calm feminist defiance into their characters, and Paul Hegarty is completely committed in his portrayal of creepy old-timey English actor. Reece Richardson attempts to elevate his underwritten ‘Nick’ with some sensitivity and superb comic timings, which really works. With the exception of Richardson and Kohane, the piece suffers from lack of genuine chemistry which makes everything feel a bit uncomfortable.

French Toast is labelled as an adaptation from Poiret’s writing. From the admittedly very limited information about the original piece online, buried deep in the Google results, I would wager there has been so much adaptation that French Toast is almost its own thing entirely. It has newly composed songs, a completely reworked narrative, and the characters’ personalities have all been updated to reflect the 1970s in England. Not that this is a problem, things that are over 40 years old almost always need modernising. You can’t help but feel though that the gropey old man is a piece of history that probably could have been left out. It felt to me a bit cheap - conflict for the sake of conflict in an already conflict-heavy piece.

Conflict is a good way to sum up how I feel about French Toast. I so keenly wanted to love it. Many of the jokes land and I laughed out loud a number of times, but there are so many flaws, inconsistencies, and rough edges in its execution that I found it impossible to relax and enjoy it. And when a show is an hour and forty straight through, those rough edges become almost intolerable. 

French Toast plays at Riverside Studios until Saturday 26 October 2024. For more information visit: https://riversidestudios.co.uk/see-and-do/french-toast-119985/ 

Photos by Lidia Crisafulli