BWW Reviews: THE SWORD AND THE DOPE, Courtyard Theatre, April 18 2013

Back for a third run in London, Goodman and Charles Productions' Arthurian epic is still stuffed full of songs, skits and silliness and still getting laughs aplenty from the stalls. It's over a year since I saw its first incarnation (reviewed here) and I was intrigued to see how this appealing, if somewhat rough and ready, production had moved on. I was not disappointed!

But first a caveat - The Sword and the Dope is not a slick comedy, performed by seasoned actor-musicians under tight direction with everything going like clockwork. Unless that clock is a cuckoo clock. It's all there, just continually punctuated by something delightfully bonkers at regular intervals!

Sir Backstabber plans to usurp brave King Arthur of the Britons in 563 (or thereabouts - it was, as the song reminds us, A Very Long Time Ago), but so does The Black Knight, as smooth an operator on the dancefloor as he is on the battlefield. With King Arthur's motley crew of knights and the help of the Woman of the Pond (and the Lady of the Lake) and a Wizard called Merlot who lives up to his name, perhaps only apprentice Sir Casey can save the nation from evil and his sweetheart from France!!

Mixing elements drawn from Panto and Python and owing something to The Two Ronnies set-piece songs, the show is relentlessly funny - once you buy in. Narrators Roddy Walker and Mike Smith have a bit of Cannon and Ball about them, James Clifford channels The Damned's Dave Vanian as the villain (and is terribly good as Neil in a laugh-out-loud funny Pet Shop Boys "homage"). There's a bit of Carry-On amongst the carry-on too (though it's a family show from start to finish) and some very decent tunes sung with great gusto. And, though it's cruel to say so, Joshua Coley (Sir Casey) bears an uncanny resemblance to a young George Osborne!

Writer/director Michael Horspool's crowdpleaser is just as good second-time round. The charm of the performances, the fun everyone has riding round on pretend horses and the shoehorning in of contemporary references is a winning formula for a couple of hours of traditional entertainment. You can't have Uncle Vanya every night - and you wouldn't want it that often either. On one of those other nights, you could do a lot worse than head to trendy Hoxton for some chivalry, sorcery and a lot of tomfoolery.

The Sword and the Dope continues at The Courtyard Theatre until 12 May 2013

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