Elizabeth and Raleigh

There’s nothing wrong with a dish made out of leftovers, but you probably wouldn’t serve it at a dinner party. No matter how carefully tarted-up it is, regardless of how technically delicious it may be, you’ll never be able to disguise the fact that it’s been cobbled together from the materials at hand rather than carefully prepared for the occasion. Your guests may be outwardly appreciative, but deep down they’re probably going to be rather disappointed.

This is by slightly tangential way of saying that the lukewarm review I’m about to give the touring version of this year’s Fringe effort from Stewart Lee is by no means an indication that it isn’t, for the most part entertaining. I laughed at an appreciable fraction of it, and so by the sounds of it did everyone else.

Simon Munnery as Elizabeth I is perhaps best known in the guise of his inspired comedy creation The League Against Tedium. Unfortunately, what he’s doing here appears to be The League Against Tedium in a ginger wig and a dress. The similarity of tone and some familiar gags suggested that he’d even been allowed to go off piste and use some old material he had lying around the house. This seemed unfair to Miles Jupp, who made a boisterous Raleigh but clearly had much less license to muck about with Lee’s flimsy, over-padded script and was saddled with some of its more laboured excesses – there are only so many laughs that can be squeezed out of a potato.

There were many good bits – mostly in the second half, which was considerably tighter than the first. A staged galleon fight drew consistent laughs with its incongrous Spanish phrasebook soundtrack (fans of Lee’s early TV work will notice a passing reference to Fist of Fun’s unnerving hobbyist Simon Quinlank), and there is some theatrical daring in the conclusion – which takes place largely in the dark with Jupp and Munnery shouting at each other from each end of the auditorium.

Bits, however, is exactly what they, and everything else happening on the stage, were. Nothing hung together, nothing went anywhere. Student-revue absurdity swirled into messy slapstick, Munnery’s hectoring mashed together with Lee’s postmodern cleverness. It felt as though it had been cobbled together – scattershot comedy flavoured with a veneer of historical context, doing no more than filling a pleasant hour of stage time. It felt like leftovers.

Matt Bright (DI Reviewer), 21/09/08

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Another tour de force by the brilliant Miles Jupp. Unmissable!

Eliza (Unverified), 18/09/08

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