This  play is not be confused with the  hit 1964 sex comedy film of the same name ( screenplay Wilder/ Diamond) starring Dean Martin and Kim Novak which drew on several sources for its material.

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Instead it is written by Frenchman Didier Caron, a distinguished playwright with over twenty film and play credits to his name. Its English translation is by Charlie Gobbett  ( who specialises in French and German translations) , receiving its English language premiere in 2022

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On a cold dark evening Sutton Arts took on the  daunting task of brightening   the mood and lifting the spirits of  its post festivities audience for an unknown play. The theatre’s loyal following packed it out. Sutton Arts rose successfully to that challenge in some style.

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Translating foreign language plays is no easy task. Molliere is unquestionably one of the greats of French and world literature, yet  none   of his plays has enjoyed a  mass market transition in English.  French farce doyen  Feydeau comes closest in that regard, But Caron born in 1962 is not writing  straight farce, instead a comic hybrid. Thus we have multiple  doors, but doors that symbolise life options, not shagging ones.

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With four characters who are largely onstage simultaneously this is  a demanding production for the cast and is tightly scripted, set, contemporaneously in two Parisienne  apartments. Viviane  (Elena Serafinas )is a  middle aged women in a long standing marriage to Bernard ( Gary Pritchard), Cindy  ( Phebe Bland) is an aspiring young  actress hired by Bernard  to pretend to be his mistress as a ruse to smoke out  his wife’s suspected infidelity. Oliver,( Paul Atkins) is Elena’s putative love interest, young vain and unlucky in love who provides a pleasingly understated anchor to the proceedings.

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Cindy consistently has the best lines laced with malapropisms , mondegreens  and spoonerisms galore. Her skirts are as short as her recall of recent events, Bland plays the bimbo confidently, injecting energy and pace  into the production. Her pretend love rival, Viviane is coy, wily, sassy and deceptively measured, played by Serafinas and has the benefit of the last word. Bernard is a delight in the hands of Pritchard, he epitomises the  anecdote of the man  who buys a chest expander to beef himself up- but cannot get the device out of the box. In turns, geeky, nerdy, mock defiant, cod philosopher and fashion disaster he is the comic ace in the pack for the show. However the programme’s claim that the actors were costumed from their own wardrobes reveals  in Pritchard’s case a disturbing predilection for cycling lycra and  Humphrey Bogarde style raincoats. The use of Supertramp, quintessentially English MOR fare, for incidental music was a curious feature

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A clever single set  is split into two for the purposes of allowing the two apartments and works brilliantly ( however I still struggle with the late Colin Townsend’s absence from the set builder credits).

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Technically  a  show like this is hard to critique. How much of this is in the original untranslated, script? How much credit falls to the translation? How much is down  to the cast ? And how much is down to the Director Ian Cornock who has to pull all the strands together for a largely unknown play? The audience may simply only judge what is laid before them. An  assured first night, frothy, bright, light and laugh out loud entertaining for which Cornock deserves considerable credit. You will enjoy it. Continues until Sat 3^rd Feb 2024

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