The Miser, Gryff Rhys Jones

Indeed.  We saw it this evening and had a great time.  Thankfully amusement and fun are not yet illegal, merely frowned upon.

Some terrible reviews for this "I didn't laugh once" ... 2* ... "a miserable evening". Obviously what is good enough for the provinces doesn't cut it with the more sophisticated London audiences, eh Martin ?

The 2* I quoted was from Metro. Billington clearly didn't take kindly to them asking him from the stage to give them a 5* review. Torygraph review finishes by saying don't waste your money. Let's agree that this one has divided the critics.

Oooh, fabulous! I'm going tomorrow because I love Katy Wix.

Now, I've read these marvellous reviews, I shall be calling ahead to ensure the bar is fully stocked with gin.

One review suggested that GRJ was unlikely casting for this as he's so pleasant and avuncular. That doesn't quite tally with what I've heard about him in the biz.

Katy Wix channels Hattie Jacques masterfully in this. I thought it was great fun. It's not cerebral but that's no bad thing.

Despite the less than ecstatic reviews I am still looking forward to seeing this next month.

For my taste, enjoyable broad comedy, but not dark enough, and the jokes are hit and miss panto. Like a mid-ranking Carry On movie.

Some spoilers follow. . .

The mention of Katy Wix parroting Hattie Jacques had me wondering which Carry On members the others were channeling. Griff Rhys Jones must be a less camp Kenneth Williams, as he's uber-haughty with a side of snide, Ryan Gage is Charles Hawtrey with a lisp, as he's prissy, meek and accident prone, Matthew Horne is Kenneth Connor as he's pompous but under Katy's cosh, and of course Lee Mack is Sid James, 'cos he's doesn't give a flying fig about any of it.

Basically, the whole thing is a stage version of a bad Carry On movie, and it would have been better if it had starred the actual Carry On cast, because then the audience would have known they were going to a bad Carry On show, and could have got suitably drunk ahead of time.

And I really do recommend getting drunk if you're close to the stage, as this cast, following Moliere's fourth-wall-breaking pattern (but also because most of them are comedians) really like looking you in the eye when they're telling you jokes. And this puts you, the audience, in the exhausting role of compassionate carer for the comedians who are trying very hard to please: straining to laugh even when not amused out of social compunction. Of course, if you are lucky enough to be a sociopath, you will be able to stare into the eyes of Griff Rhys Jones, as he turns his comic energy up to one million to get a laugh out of you, and look back stoneyfaced and uninterested without a pang of guilt. But normal people will look into his elastic gurning face and gurn right back out of courtesy, and it is this pretending to laugh that gets so wearing.

For this reason, it's best to have a seat in the rear, or alternatively to be blotto, so that such social anxieties don't blight your enjoyment. Because there is in fact alot of fun to be had from the 2 out of 5 jokes that work. I'm not surprised that Ryan, in particular, would find draggy patches in this show, as I'm struck that Ryan's effortless off-the-cuff comedic remarks on this board achieve a hit rate at least double this effortful show (ie 4 out of 5 jokes are funny).

The show is effortful because those comedians are working so hard to make comic lemonade out of comedy lemons. But when the jokes work, they work.

The best two performers are Lee Mack and Ryan Gage for completely different reasons. Lee Mack plays the comedy, but his shoulder-shrugging affability means you laugh BECAUSE the jokes are bad, ie he's in on it with you laughing at how bad the play is, so it's hilarious. Ryan Gage makes no eye contact with the audience, and plays the character, a character so defined in his lisping, bumbling, campness, that he can say any line whatsoever and translate it into something else that is surprising and wacky. These two performances are great.

In fact, all the comedians do a decent job but without enough sufficiently funny material.

For my taste, Moliere works best if it's both broad and dark. This is broad but too light, the Keira Knightley Misanthrope was dark but not broad, whereas Marcus Gardley's reworking of Tartuffe at The Tricycle, "A Wolf in Snakeskin Shoes," being both broad and dark in tone, had me in stitches throughout (as Lucian Msamati's evangelist Tartuffe hit that broad dark cruel comic note that was genuinely edgy rather than panto light, like this show).

So here's the thing. Two out of every five jokes hitting can make for a great evening as long as the three out of five jokes that miss cause you no distress. Drink it up, I say, unless you are an alcoholic, in which case, sit at that back! Or a sociopath, in which case, sit anywhere you want.

2 and a half stars.

I agree re The Painkiller, but interestingly both plays are written/adapted by Sean Foley.

Did people like The Painkiller more because Sir Ken was in it and it was a Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company production?  (He was workaday with the physical comedy). 

Or do they hate The Miser more, even if they haven't yet seen it, because the word 'pantomime' was used in some of the reviews when 'farce' might have been a better description?

I'd say, it's got a good cast and it's a comedy. Embrace it and enjoy it!

I think The Painkiller was intended to be a farce, but it was just one of the most horrendous experiences I've ever had in a theatre in actuality.

And if it puts other people off ever going near a theatre for the rest of their life?

Anyone seen this from the £25 stalls seats? Did you miss much? (Trying to decide whether it's worth stepping up to a £35 reduced from £65 instead.)