Review by Sam Waite
⭐️⭐️
Classic comedy duos thrived on winning chemistry – whether it was a pair of clowns, a mismatched couple, or a straight-man and his endlessly foolish companion, there was always a spark of genuine affection in the work. Biddle and Bash, the duo at the heart of Mark Jagasia’s The Double Act, never quite made it out of their early, eventually-controversial successes, one going solo and the other fading into obscurity. The Double Act has early promise itself, but like the title characters it stumbles in its efforts to maintain its charms.
Billy Bash, at the tail end of a theatre tour, has been brought to old partner Clifford Biddle’s house by upstairs lodger Gulliver. Clifford is gravely ill, Gulliver has claimed, and Billy ought to stop by to reminisce and to have what could be their final moments. It quickly transpires that this was a ruse by fanboy Gulliver to reunite his favourite childhood comics, and that Clifford is more mentally unsound than physically. The real reason he’s there is that Clifford, not long for this world thanks to a decades-old incident with Billy, wants to perform on stage one last time.
While the first few minutes are a bit stilted, Gulliver awkwardly welcoming Billy into Cliff’s grimy seaside home, the whole things smoothens nicely when Clifford makes his bumbling entrance. The perennial straight-man decades prior, there’s an underlying joke in the fact that funny-man Billy is the gruff, stern party opposite Cliff’s endless gags and misinterpretations. Jagasia builds much of the script around the kind of back-and-forth, “I thought you said…” kind of comedy the duo would have championed in the 80’s, and I couldn’t help but feel there was a genius one-act playing with this structure just below The Double Act’s over-complicated surface.
The second act turns rather sharply, and at a breakneck pace. Tonally it’s much more ominous, and plot-wise there’s a lot more to digest, the slowly-revealed secrets of act one thrown aside for quickfire truths that shake the characters and audience to the core… or would, if we had any real time to sit with them. I have no doubt the sharpness of the tonal change was deliberate, bringing increasing weight to the awkward reunion, but in feeling less lovingly-mocking of comedy cliches the show lost a lot of the pastiche qualities that made it feel as if it may be a charming night out. Director Oscar Pearce keeps up with the changes, not losing the sense of the characters he and Jagasia have built in the process of adapting to the darker elements, but can only do so much to keep things from becoming confusing.
Nigel Betts (as Billy Bash) and Nigel Cooke (Clifford Biddle) are a finer duo than their characters ever were, and that genuine chemistry I mentioned earlier sparks easily between them. Both characters lean into stock ideas a tad too much for real, distinct growth, but the connection between them feels singular and authentic. Both land many of the deliberately-dated jokes through virtue of knowing how hackneyed it all is – they and Jagasia are in on the joke, the purposeful badness of it all, and much funnier for it. Sadly, a lack of anyone to create this same blend of affection and dismay with strands Edward Hogg, whose committed performance as Gulliver largely fails to register either as a comic presence or as a gradually more ominous one.
With The Double Act set in real time, the second act picking up a mere second after the interval begins, Sarah Beaton’s single set has to maintain utility and interest for the entire performance. Sparing but effective, her living-room stage has the right amount of blandness, the perfect touches of “well, I never have any guests” to immediately inform us of the lonely life Clifford lives. A shelving unit at the back corner shows that he did perhaps have hobbies once, but Beaton has cleverly informed us just how empty this home – and this life – are. There are also some strong, deeply atmospheric moments from lighting designer Matt Haskins and sound designer Dan Balfour, though whether the result of the script or Pearce’s choices in when to employ their work, these more often than not become confusing – hints of the supernatural seem to be at play when lights flicker and items fall without touch, but nothing in this story suggests any non-living threat is afoot.
There’s a unique joy in those old comedy duos, something that makes the humour still land even when you know it isn’t really funny. There’s also a unique heart to these pairs, an implied history that permeates every moment of mock-bickering and false displeasure. More than anything, I wish that The Double Act was truly about these individual joys, and the sorrows that accompany them, rather than the pseudo-thriller it threatens and ultimately fails to become.
The Double Act plays at the Arcola Theatre until February 22nd
For tickets and information visit https://www.arcolatheatre.com/whats-on/the-double-act/