Mixed messages | 4 July 2019

Present Laughter introduces us to a chic, louche and highly successful theatrical globetrotter, Garry Essendine, whose riotous social life is centred on his swish London apartment. This is Noël Coward’s version of Noël Coward. In the script, from 1942, Coward alleges that his alter ego is being chased by three women. The in crowd would have laughed at the reference to Coward’s secret orientation but this version rather earnestly converts one of the females into a rugged Spanish male.

What for? Few scripts from the wartime era remain in the theatrical canon and one of the pleasures of seeing a vintage play is to examine the habits and conventions of a half-forgotten age. The director, Matthew Warchus, seems to assume that audiences today are narrow-minded bumpkins who can’t comprehend any morality but their own. And by forcing Garry out of the closet, Warchus stifles the play’s teasingly cynical atmosphere, and he removes a layer of emotional pain from the central character. Worse, he destroys the point of Roland Maule, a confused youngster whose clumsy attempts at seduction Garry brusquely rejects. This was another in-joke. Ardent male groupies such as Maule were exactly the kind of delicacy on which Coward regularly feasted.

The visual details in this production are confused as well. Telephones and other fittings are from the 1940s but many of the wigs and costumes look modern. Garry’s apartment is dominated by a huge installation, the brainchild of Rob Howell, that appears to soar above the stage like a blue-winged phoenix. Perhaps it draws too much attention to itself. Nevertheless, it looks stunning.

The action opens with Garry’s secretary, Monica, finding her boss’s latest conquest asleep on the sofa. Monica is usually played as a humourless old boot but Sophie Thompson transforms her into a sarcastic gossip who gets a laugh on every line.