Reviews Sheffield Published 22 May 2014

Boeing Boeing

Crucible Theatre ⋄ 15th May - 7th June 2014

Broad strokes and stereotypes.

John Murphy

Marc Camloetti’s French farce could well be re-titled Two Men, Three Fiancées. Bernard is a Frenchman engaged to three different air stewardesses – one American, one German and the other Italian. He performs a tricky schedule of keeping the three women from knowing about each other’s existence, with the help of his housemaid Bertha. This system works well enough until his friend Richard comes to visit.

Boeing Boeing is an unashamedly old-fashioned, broad kind of comedy which pays no heed to modern-day sensibilities. It gleefully plays on stereotypes and, like all good farces, relies on some improbable plot twists to keep the story moving along. Fortunately though, and mostly thanks to the cast and director Jonathan Humphreys’ uncanny knack for timing, the whole things pretty works.

Christian McKay plays the louche, confident Bernard and  sparks nicely off Joseph Kloska’s nervy Robert. Kloska is a bundle of manic energy throughout and has a puppy-dog charm which is reminiscent, at times, of Rob Brydon. Fans of Spaced and I’m Alan Partridge will also be pleased to see the excellent Julia Deakin, who gets the lion’s shares of laughs as Bernard’s put-upon housekeeper – her performance benefits greatly from its understated nature, a welcome contrast to the frantic mugging going on around her.

Kelly Price, Natalie Thomas and Lizzie Winkler are also good as the three air-hostesses, although the accents of all three actresses do wobble a fair bit. They’re also hampered by the fact that Camloetti wrote the air hostesses as broad national stereotypes rather than rounded characters, so Winkler’s Greta is a bit screechy and loves to eat saurkraut, Price is the laid-back, promiscuous American and Thomas is a clingy Italian who, of course, eats a lot of pasta. None of them seem like real people, but they were never meant to be – the laughs are generated from the various hoops that Bernard, Robert and Bertha have to jump through in order to ensure that the three women don’t run into each other.

The pace never drops for a moment, and makes good use of Fabrice Serafino’s colourful, retro set, especially when using the five doors which dominate the back of the stage. Humphreys also uses the Crucible’s thrust stage particularly well and has a real knack for comic timing, both in the physical sequences and in the delivery of the dialogue.

Funny as it often is, there is something rather uneven about this revival. McKay, Kloska and Deakin all play their roles with English accents (it’s only the script’s many references to Paris and Bertha addressing Bernard and Richard as ‘monsieur’ that remind you that the play is set in France), yet Price, Thomas and Winkler all have to adopt their characters’ respective accents – with varying degrees of success – an approach which feels a bit unbalanced.

Furthermore, the play’s denouement feels flat, everything all too easily wrapped up. The three women never discover the truth about each other, and the fact that Greta ends up falling in love with Richard and suddenly becomes engaged to him in the course of one evening is a stretch too far, even for a play such as this. Of course, I was never expecting nuanced character development and realistic plotting, but even in context it feels rushed and wrong.

Taken on its own terms as a piece of proudly retro, undemanding comedy, there’s a lot to like here, performed as it is with skill and bags of energy; it’s difficult not to succumb to its charms, for a little while at least.

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John Murphy

John is the former editor of, and current contributor to, musicOMH. He lives in Sheffield, in the shadow of the famous Crucible and Lyceum theatres, and also reviews in nearby Leeds and Manchester. John is also a huge fan of stand-up comedy, and can be often be found in one of Sheffield's comedy clubs, laughing like a madman.

Boeing Boeing Show Info


Directed by Jonathan Humphreys

Cast includes Joseph Kloska, Christian McKay, Julia Deakin, Kelly Price, Natalie Thomas and Lizzie Winkler

Link http://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

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