Sweeping, sod-you comedy – irresistible: Billionaire Boy reviewed

Falling In Love Again features two of the 20th century’s best-known sex athletes. Ron Elisha’s drama covers a long drunken night spent by Marlene Dietrich and Edward VIII at Fort Belvedere, near Windsor, on the eve of Edward’s abdication in December 1936. It sounds like a contrived premise for a play but Elisha, who researches his material thoroughly, says this encounter actually took place. Marlene (played by Ramona von Pusch as an enigmatic adventuress in green lipstick) claims to have fled the Savoy where Rudolf Hess is bombarding her with flowers in the hope of luring her home to make films for the Third Reich. Marlene refuses because she can’t stand Hitler. Edward, by contrast, admires the Führer but their clash of views doesn’t crystallise into anything significant.

Rather ungallantly, Edward keeps sloshing back spirits without offering his guest a drink. And he corrects her when she calls him ‘your Highness’. A stickler for protocol, he insists on ‘your Royal Highness’. However, at this point he’s still the monarch so ‘your Majesty’ would be the right form. It’s odd that he doesn’t know this. Equally strangely, he refers to his tipple as ‘whisky’ even though the liquid he drinks is colourless. A grain of food dye in the decanter would solve that problem.

The question that hangs over these two international celebrities is, of course, sex. Will they or won’t they? They keep striking amorous poses and staring deep into each other’s eyes but with no result. The fact that neither is constrained from having a one-night stand is, dramatically, a problem. Love affairs without obstacles are tedious to watch. And Elisha keeps spinning out the romantic uncertainties in the hope of seizing our attention. Marlene hints that she might displace Wallis, persuade Edward to cancel the abdication and marry him, thus making herself England’s queen.