Review: AMENDMENTS: A PLAY ON WORDS, Old Red Lion Theatre

It’s a tried and tested comedy formula - see Steptoe and Son, Porridge, Rising Damp and countless others. Trap two people in a room, give them a grievance, light the blue touch paper and retire. That’s what Middle Weight Theatre Company do with their sparkling, acerbic, Zeitgeisty comedy, amendments: a play on words. 

John, middle-aged, middle-class, middle-management, has been summoned by Kenneth, HR director and proselytiser-in-chief for the company’s new policy on workplace interactions. Kenneth, racked with sweaty anxiety about his mission to embed this new culture should really have his own version of Chairman Mao’s ‘Little Red Book’, so zealous is his embrace of euphemism, corporate-speak and thought control. John, initially relaxed, eager to brush it off and get back to business-as-usual, slowly realises that it’s for real, that his career is on the line, the school fees direct debit in jeopardy. Sparks fly.

Al Wadlan gives us a fine slow burn as the increasingly exasperated Kenneth, caught out of time in a world that has moved on. We’re never left in doubt, and this is a fine testimony to Matt Roberts’ writing, that his discomfit is primarily caused by the years of entitled ease such men have enjoyed in offices in the UK and beyond. This double-satire (once on the deadening effect of politically correct language and second on the workplaces of not so very long ago) is subtle and satisfying, a fine example of black comedy at its best.

None of that would work without Roberts’ delivering his acting brief, a monster of an executive who isn’t quite monstrous, a true-believer we suspect doesn’t quite believe and a man who, deep down, we all know is right much, much more than he’s wrong. It’s a nuanced performance in a role that could easily topple over the line into a sledgehammer caricature - the scalpel is much more powerful.

A 75 minutes two-hander that’s been around for a while now, it’s a slick show that skewers plenty of targets, but there’s no denying that a female voice is missing. Add that, with the potential for biting comedy exploited as it is elsewhere, and a fine show would be elevated still further.       

amendments: a play on words at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 14 October

Photo Credit: Middle Weight Theatre

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