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IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY by Ray Cooney 22 May to 13 June 1998 Directed by Simone de Haas Cast List Review Usual Suspects in Tangled Web Alison Cotes - The Courier Mail - 4 June 1998 Farce can be either sophisticated subversion dripping with venomous wit or cheerful knockabout anarchy best described as "comedy with the meaning left out". All farce however involves complicated plots and cheerful suggestive sex and it's always fiendishly difficult to play and depends on perfect timing. So where should we put Mixed Company's production of It Runs in the Family? Definitely in the second category, for the intellectual depth of this play is about equal to that of the Carry On movies but without the smuttier sexual innuendoes. It's the Christmas season at St Andrew's Hospital and the doctors are preparing for the annual pantomime - of which, thankfully, we are not given a foretaste, except for matron jokes involving ejaculations such as "Ahoy in front and a vast behind" which, of course, the senior surgeon doesn't understand. Yes well....I suppose this is where the subversion comes in, in the same way as John Mortimer stitches up barristers in the Rumpole series. The implied question here is whether you would really trust your hemorrhoids to these people - this being a British comedy, there are lots of bum and enema jokes. The neurologist's imminent lecture to 200 international colleagues is threatened by a visit from a nurse with whom, 17 years ago, he used to grapple on the sluice-room floor and who subsequently gave birth to a strapping lad, of whose existence he has remained in total ignorance - until now. He's a married man, his career is just about to take off and along comes a son whom he cannot acknowledge. Oh what a tangled web we weave.... You can guess the rest. Along the way to the inevitable happy ending, we meet the usual suspects - a starched-up matron, a sentimental bovver boy, an alcoholic hospital director, Mr Plod the Policeman, a patient with Alzheimer's and assorted incompetent surgeons. There are verbal puns of the genes/jeans variety, men in drag with bad wigs and the obligatory confusion about who's doing what with the hospital trolleys. By the second act, it's well out of order, and all that's wanting is the colonel from Monty Python to come in and say: "This is all getting extremely silly." And so it is, but if you like this kind of thing, it's entertaining enough. |
