The Mystery of Irma Vep @ The Lyceum Theatre

Arthur Rimbaud – a jolly chap, French, liked his wine – once said: “Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.” A neat little phrase that rather sums up the “seemingly low-brow but actually quite sophisticated” nature of said art form. Rather unfortunately, however, the Lyceum’s production of The Mystery of Irma Vep is definitely in the lowered brow end of the spectrum. So low, in fact, they’re more of a moustache. To give the actors their credit, they work their socks – and dresses, claws and even a leg – off: Andy Gray and Steven McNicoll play all eight inhabitants of the gothic mansion Mandacrest on their ownsome, performing costume and location changes that defy the laws of time and space. And the premise is promising. Subtitled ‘A Penny Dreadful’, Charles Ludlam’s play satirises the best (or worst?) of Victorian melodramas, complete with vampires, ghosts, broad accented characters and Things That Go Bump In The Night. All too soon, however, any wit the script contains slides into basic pantomime. True, there are moments of sheer brilliance – a Deliverance musical duel between lady and servant was wonderfully pitched – but the majority of the jokes appear to have fallen out of Benny Hill’s backlog. Such ribaldry might be hard to avoid in a play that includes a stipulation that the actors must be of the same sex, thus ensuring cross-dressing hilarity, but when the energy falls to the point that the dialogue begins to genuinely sound like the subject matter it’s meant to be satirising, interest wanes. Technically, most of the elements are present and correct: fairly imaginative staging, actors with great comic timing, and an historically successful play. But the sum of its parts fails to hit the mark. If basic bums and boobs gags are your bag, then book a seat. Otherwise, steer clear.