The ludicrously titled Titanic Sinks Titswilly had such an embarrassing moniker I felt compelled to whisper the name under my breath at the press office, trailing off at the end to mumble something more like ‘Titanic Sinks Tiiii’. Titanic Sinks Titswilly unfortunately went the proverbial tits up.
It follows the shenanigans of a London theatre director who moves to the titular (no pun intended) town in The West Country - aka somewhere west of the Big Smoke and south of the M4 – and gets roped into the local am-dram performance of Titanic. To be fair, it takes itself about as seriously as Boris Johnson on a zipwire; the whole thing is farcically peppered with randy farmers and cowpats. There is nothing wrong with farce; however, the humour in Tit-Sink-Tit (as I have now christened it) was astonishingly puerile, revolving around ridiculous accents, ‘comedy’ falls, and inexplicable Irish country dancing.
When the comedy wasn’t busy trying unsuccessfully to make a 10-year-old boy laugh, it wasmaking the kinds of hilarious funnies that get stand-ups in trouble with feminist journalists. Bending over to pick up something, the female director is surprised by one of the country yokels in the cast shuffling up behind her and labouring to unbuckle his belt. When she looks up in surprise to find a farmer pressed up against her pelvis, he sighs despondently ‘Arrrrr I ain’t as quick as I used ter be’. I wasn’t sure whether to cry or get out the pitchfork.
Like the slowest, most overcrowded Great Western service,Titswilly is both dull to experience (unless you have a decent book) and tells you exactly where it is going next with unsubtle passenger announcements. Like the Titanic, I was hoping that it would prematurely sink without a trace halfway through its voyage - no such luck.
