Robert Tanitch review Matchbox Theatre at Hampstead Theatre, London NW3
Michael Frayn is famous as a playwright and as a novelist. He has written one of the great farces of the 20th century: Noises Off!
Matchbox Theatre is described as an evening of short entertainments and offers 23 dialogues and monologues. It’s a revue of sorts, along the lines of Frayn’s Alarms and Excursions which was seen in the West End in 1998 and didn’t work, either
I enjoyed listening to a TV journalist reporting on Hamlet, the play, as if it were an on-going real-life news event. The scene at the airport with two lovers unable to hear what the other was saying because of continuous announcements over the loudspeakers was also amusing.
Best of all was the documentary on the habits of assistant stage managers during scene changes portrayed as if it were a wild life documentary by David Attenborough
But revues are tricky and by their very nature are liable to be hit and miss. The sketches are very short but most of them still go on to long. Most don’t work either as mini-plays or as short stories and presented all together the 23 items certainly don’t add up to a satisfying evening’s entertainment.
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