Courting disaster

‘Hunt the Flop’, the Royal Court’s bizarre quest for dud plays, has found a candidate for this year’s overall prize. Instructions for Correct Assembly by Thomas Eccleshare is a family satire set in the near future. Plot: suburban parents replace their missing son with a computerised cyborg which malfunctions. That’s it. Were this a pitch for a TV sketch show the producer would say, ‘OK, but then what?’ The answer here is virtually nothing.

Early on, the cyborg makes embarrassing political statements and expresses support for Brexit. The parents hastily silence him using a hand-held device that returns him to their dead-safe Guardianista outlook. This gag is extended later when the cyborg does the ‘drunken uncle’ routine at a party and makes sexist overtures to two women. These patchy comic efforts are the play’s only highlights. The meandering script has an error that any competent producer ought to spot: a lack of conflict between the parents. One should be keener than the other on the experimental cyborg. But without that dynamic the play becomes a fallow heap of biscuit-mix banalities. Confusingly, the production features flashback scenes that involve the son before he disappeared. But the son and the cyborg are played by the same actor, with no change of costume, and it’s unclear that these scenes belong to the past. It took me an hour to realise that the play was using two timescales in parallel, and yet, weirdly enough, this discovery added no depth or interest whatsoever.

Two fine actors are squandered here. Mark Bonnar, adept at playing middle-class nuisances, brings some welcome touches of physical wit to the show. Opposite him is Jane Horrocks, one of the best comediennes in the business.