This droll play follows the life of an elderly gay man and the relationship he develops with a male prostitute. Despite the cheeky poster and intriguing set-up, the only significant thing I found in the show is that it contains the most overused sound effect in any production I’ve seen at the festival this year: an unnecessary constantly opening and closing front door. There is some spiky humour within the script, but it generally gets lost amongst the rather limp pacing and stilted staging. Placing a couch centre stage for the entirety of a production causes problems in that the play never seems to move anywhere. We are constantly just watching the characters sitting on the couch talking, and it becomes increasingly dull if the script isn’t up to scratch.
The moments of slapstick that are hammered into the production are rather cringe worthy, as are the sudden attempts at an emotional ending to the story. The performances are varied; the three actors try their best but are let down by a script that isn’t terribly funny and causes them to ham it up. Sometimes the Australian accents are so strong that the clarity of the dialogue is lost and tripping over lines doesn’t do the production any favours. Whilst the cast share good chemistry, the script leads them in circles and winds up nowhere particularly interesting. The one-liners are sometimes very funny but they are few and far between.
It’s a harmlessly fluffy piece of camp theatre that makes up for the dullness of the script and direction with some colourful costumes and language and perhaps some overcompensation on the actors’ behalf through broad characterisations and lots of nudity.