“Normally on the first night the set falls over...”

Published in 1994, Dahling You Were Marvellous attempts, in the words of the author, “to parody those precious dahlings and those utterly self-important creatures whose lives desperately depend on the outside world to give them form and shape, adulation and importance, having very little substance of their own”. The play offers a window into the insincere world of the thespian – a world of elitists and sycophants, Channel 4 commissions, opening nights, and grants ‘cut in real terms’.

Structurally, it’s a very interesting piece; drifting from conversation to conversation as a series of vignettes, characters are revisited, and do have a sort of development – but much like The Bedsitting Room, it offers an atmosphere more than a linear narrative. And again, like The Bedsitting Room, it offers affectionate (and accurate) satire.

Following Berkoff’s idea of ‘total’ theatre, this production eschews props and set, with as much attention paid to the physical aspects of the actors’ delivery as their lines. Indeed, this is an enormously accomplished production, and it might be fair to describe the performance as ‘choreography’ as much as ‘acting’. The cast of five (Cameron Cook, Nick Davies, Misha Pinnington, Helena Wilson, and David Meredith) leap, strut, and waddle around the stage – and in the seated scenes, the facial acrobatics are as engaging as the dialogue.

Particular highlights included David Meredith’s Sid, demanding ever more funding as his arms performed a sort of semaphore routine, Nick Davies’ potential Macbeth, conducting conversations with his eyes closed, and Cameron Cook’s maître d’, who appeared to breathe in at the start of the scene, and not exhale once. This is a very high-energy performance, and credit is due to the actors and the director (Cook again) for maintaining the manic energy for the entire hour.

Perhaps the ultimate barometer of any comedy is whether the audience was laughing. In this production, they definitely were – and a slow-motion restaurant sequence between Davies and Meredith garnered a well-deserved round of applause. While they’re working from a brilliant script (example exchange: “A surging mass of humanity, there's your audience, Sid, if only they would come to your theatre” a sycophant declares, to an acquaintance working on a piece about the poll-tax riots. “They can't afford theatre you idiot,” Sid retorts. “That's why we're doing the play… we're reflecting Thatcherite Britain.”) the cast and production team also deserve credit – accents are realised flawlessly, group scenes and transitions are seamless. And clever casting decisions (such as having the same actor play the reviewer being whispered about, and the terrified thesp doing the majority of the whispering) all maximise the laughs.

In short, this is an enormously accomplished production of a smart satire. Mahvellous.