Stilted above its affluent surroundings, The Master Marina bar can spark a twang of green-eyed envy. And in this superb, bristling piece of theatre, companies Otherplace and Something Witty throw the kitchen sink at Fo’s tale.
The husband, played pitch-perfectly by the impish Samuel Dutton, is a randy middle-ager who breaks his wife’s ankle to foil her attempted suicide after learning of his umpteenth new lover.
She has agreed to let him satisfy hormones over morality within the confines of their relationship – a scornful cat-and-mouse rivalry of bitterness and passion.
As the mocking wife, Heather Rayment stokes a fearsome chemistry with Dutton – he rips her skirt off in between their repeated attempts to shoot each other and she sneers at his cartoon pants as he shuffles half-naked around the room.
She gets a new wardrobe, a Lily Allen haircut and a Nobel Prize troubling Professor who plays guitar in a jazz band, but ultimately thinks their arrangement is “disgusting”, shrieking at her abominably insecure soulmate when he demands to meet her boyfriend.
The breathless and brilliant end sequence includes fart gags, man boob-holders made from sandwich makers (“the breader bra”) and a finale which somehow gets away with playing us out to the strains of Whitney Houston.
An engrossing combination of comedy and venom, it will leave you hot under the collar long after you’ve left the marina.
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