Review Roundup: THE COMEDY ABOUT SPIES from Mischief Theatre

Mischief’s new action-packed thriller The Comedy About Spies is gripping audiences with laughter at the Noël Coward Theatre. The multi award-winning team behind The Play That Goes Wrong and The Comedy About a Bank Robbery step into 1960s London in this hilarious spy caper full of misunderstanding, miscommunication, and mistaken identity.

A rogue British agent steals plans for a top-secret new weapon. Spies from the CIA and the KGB assemble at London’s Piccadilly Hotel to track down the British mole and obtain the file. When a young British couple and an older actor auditioning for the title role in the first James Bond film check into the hotel, the stakes reach boiling point in this riotous world of Cold War farce.

So what did the critics think?

The Comedy About Spies continues at the Noël Coward Theatre until 5 September.

Photo credit: Mark Senior

Franco Milazzo, BroadwayWorld: What could easily have come off the rails is majestically held together by Matt DiCarlo’s razor-sharp direction. Lines snap with a military precision, the action sequences have a real zip about them and the most tender scenes draw genuine emotion. The finale to act one is a series of farcical decisions and mistakes which somehow coalesce into a masterpiece of co-ordinated chaos; to paraphrase Sir Terry Pratchett, this show’s most memorable sequences only happen because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Ryan Gilbey , The Guardian: David Farley’s doll’s-house-style cross-section set, which splits the hotel into colour-coded quarters in the first act, is glorious, but his designs grow fussy and over-dressed in act two and leave one craving the ingenious minimalism of Operation Mincemeat. The depth of emotion in that similarly silly show is also absent here, making The Comedy About Spies a more mechanical endeavour. Except, that is, for actor and co-writer Henry Lewis’s poignant final line reading, which bestows dignity on to a character (the Bond wannabe) who has been a buffoon throughout. This time, there were tears in my eyes for a different reason.

Nick Curtis, The Standard: Mischief’s artistic director, Lewis co-wrote the script with Wright, and there are many of their fellow founders – who all studied together at LAMDA – and trusted regulars from previous shows in the cast. Dave Hearn’s elastic Lance, Chris Leask’s strangulated Sergei and Greg Tannahill’s fey hotel manager all delight – Tannahill also choreographs the fights. Nancy Zamit and Charlie Russell bring coarser grain to the roles of Lance’s mother Janet and Sergei’s eye-rolling partner Elena. James, a newcomer to the Mischief fold, plays it admirably straight as Rosemary. Director Matt DiCarlo keeps the pace up and David Farley’s simple set nicely recalls the backdrops of 1960s animations.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: In the midst of this invitation to bungle – involving covert bugged radios, overt communication failures and frantic excuses – stand the sweetly hapless figure of Shields’s Bernard Wright, a baker, vainly trying to propose to his girlfriend (Adele James’s Rosemary) and Lewis’s Douglas Woodbead, a loudly roaring failed actor, preparing to audition for James Bond. No less cherishable are Charlie Russell and Chris Leask as the only too conspicuous Russkies, while Dave Hearn and Nancy Zamit impress as the clueless (and, ludicrously, related) Yanks. In a knowingly wearying second half, the plot thickens with spiralling double-crossing guaranteed to have everyone, not just the tourists, struggling to keep up. I’d say it takes near genius to fashion something this incorrigibly goofy.

Alun Hood, WhatsOnStage: The material is weaker than the structure and mechanics. Lewis and Shields clearly understand what makes great farce work, but could afford not to sling every funny idea at the wall to see what sticks, especially at this stage in their successful careers and with budgets and resources at this high a level at their disposal. It’s nice to see a non-musical with universal appeal arrive in the West End, despite a cringe-inducing running gag about threesomes involving close relatives that threatens to give a whole new meaning to the words “family show”. Elsewhere, the script is tamer yet, mercifully, funnier.

Clive Davis, The Times: Lewis, who played the pompous mentalist in Mind Mangler — Mischief’s send-up of the magician’s trade — steals scene after scene as Douglas Woodbead, a monumentally self-satisfied thespian who arrives at a fancy West End hotel to prepare for an audition for the first Bond film. Although his recent credits do not amount to much more than appearing in a haemorrhoids commercial, he is confident of getting the role ahead of some Scottish upstart called “Sean”. Little does he know that he is about to be entangled with American and Soviet secret agents who have converged on the premises in pursuit of plans for a secret weapon.

Holly O'Mahony , The Stage: Mischief’s work is inspired by Michael Frayn’s masterpiece Noises Off and the rising farcical stakes of the first act bear a resemblance. But although this comedy is neatly plotted – with all balls thrown in the air eventually retrieved – there’s more going round in circles than cleverly building towards a comedic crescendo. How well you get on with it will depend on your humour, but loyal fans of the company won’t be disappointed. It’s pure escapism: it doesn’t make you think and you’ll see the jokes coming before they land. If that’s what you need, then this gaggle of spies and their luckless path-crossers will keep you entertained.

Aliya Al-Hassan, London Theatre: Even for Mischief, this is an ambitious show, with rarely a pause in the action. Farce is one of the hardest forms of comedy to get right, particularly physically. Accuracy in timing is everything and movement director Shelley Maxwell and director Matt DiCarlo have done a remarkable job in making all the pratfalls, scene changes and general chaos look effortless. The Noël Coward is a large venue and needs a production that can fill the space. Fortunately designer David Farley has created around 20 locations, making great use of trapdoors, travelators and one impressive set which manages to fit four separate hotel rooms on stage at once. Johanna Town’s lighting works in perfect harmony, highlighting every physical gag.

Average Rating: 77.5%