A day trip to London yesterday to catch a matinee of “The Comedy About A Bank Robbery” at the Criterion. Produced by the same team that put together the hilarious “The Play That Goes Wrong“, it’s another farce but this one relies a lot more on comedy staging and acting than its predecessor.
The one liners are deliberately hammy but still extremely funny and it’s full of visual gags and physical slapstick; and at times the show is extremely inventive. The second act in particular, looking down on the office from the air conditioning system is brilliantly staged. As a perspective gag, it’s superbly realised and not something you are likely to have seen before. Possibly not quite as strong as The Play That Goes Wrong, with the quite traditional farcical bedroom scene in the first half outstaying its welcome; indeed, the couple next to me didn’t return for the second half because they thought the scene over-extended and in so doing missed the brilliance of the second hour. However, it is certainly more ambitious than its predecessor and the speed of the staging is in a different league. As an added and nerdy bonus, we’d never been to the Criterion before, so that’s another London theatre off the ‘to do’ list. Recommended to anyone with a funny bone, the slight lull at the end of the first hour is more than compensated for by the quality of the second act.