Stop! The Play at the Trafalgar Studios starts well. Adam Riches’ first monologue is amusing and sets the scene for an entertaining first act. A group of actors are rehearsing a new play in the days leading up to its first production. But the script hasn’t been locked down and rewrites keep appearing, introducing new characters, reducing other actors’ parts and changing plot lines and themes.
Adam Riches and Ben Starr. Photo by Matt Humphrey
We meet the cast in rehearsals. Adam Riches plays Hugh, playing Michael in the play within a play, an artist forced to teach rather than make his own work. He is the star of the play that the troupe are putting on – at least in the first draft . Riches is an engaging presence, interacting with the audience to great hilarity and displaying well-honed comic timing. He makes a simple mis-pronunciation continually amusing even after much repetition.To his consternation his part gradually shrinks and it takes much persuasion from director Evelyn to keep him in the production. Ben Starr plays Evelyn with intense drive, the right choice for a character who spouts lines like ‘I want to feel the distance’ and somehow believes in the ropey play that they are performing.
One important character is never seen. Hildred is the writer, capriciously sending down new drafts of the script like a Greek deity constantly meddling in the affairs of humans.
Act one is funny and writer David Spicer has sprinkled the script with many high-blown similes that have the audience roaring. Anticipation for the second act is high. Unfortunately it doesn’t capitalise on the set-up.
There are too few links to what we have seen before and the play veers off in directions that are nonsensical and driven only by whimsy. It is unclear exactly what we are watching. Conceptually it ought to be the play’s first night but it seems more like another dress rehearsal. Michael has shop tags on his clothes, there are on-stage arguments between the cast, and lines so forgotten they have to be ripped from the script and handed to the actor. The amusing similes continue though and aided by Starr’s earnest delivery most of them are winners.
The actors do a great job with the play they’re given. Hatty Preston’s Gemma’s Linda is an enthusiastic foil for Michael’s artist, and her shock at the direction her part is taking is fun. But James Woolley is wasted as Walter, who supplies out-of-place reminiscences in Act one and is mainly absent in Act two.
Act Two doesn’t feel like watching an amusing pastiche of a bad play. Unfortunately it is more like watching a bad play. A farce set behind the scenes at a theatre has to be compared with Noises Off. Despite starting strongly Stop! The Play doesn’t get near those exacting standards.
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