“It is a very odd room, isn’t it? It’s like a magic dark room where everything happens the wrong way round.”
A rare line of clarity that comes towards the end of Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy, that is probably the most succinct summary you could write of this one-act whirlwind.
Joe Bannister as Brindsley Miller and Patricia Allison as Clea in Black Comedy
Set in a London flat in the 1960s, struggling sculptor Brindsley Miller and his fiancée Carol Melkett are preparing for the arrival of Carol’s father, Colonel Melkett, and a millionaire art collector they hope will reignite Miller’s luck, simultaneously setting him on the path to success and securing the Colonel’s approval of the somewhat hasty engagement.
They have also “borrowed” their neighbour’s significantly nicer furniture for the occasion without his knowing. As Brindsley, played by Joe Bannister, tells Leah Haile as Carol: “I’ve got a foreboding. It’s all going to be a disaster. An A1, copper-bottomed, twenty-four-carat disaster.” No less than a few minutes later the characters descend into darkness. A fuse has blown and a power cut is set to send the evening into unbridled chaos.
The twist? As the lights turn off for the characters, they turn on for the audience. The play begins in total darkness and for the rest of the play, any moment a light comes on, whether that’s a match or a lighter, the lighting dims.
Chris Chilton as Schuppanzigh in Black Comedy
Lighting teams are often overlooked, but all credit for the success of this production must go to lighting designer Elliot Griggs. The switches from light to dark to dimness are seamless, but you can see how one error would completely shatter the whole premise of Shaffer’s farce.
Throughout the evening Brindsley faces a series of hurdles, from having to return his neighbour’s furniture and replace it with his own, to the secret arrival of his ex-girlfriend. Bannister, returning to Orange Tree Theatre after a role in Hedda last year, leans into the physical comedy with full force, at one point army crawling across the stage, at another balancing a bag on one foot while hopping around holding a rocking chair. All of this, of course, in the dark.
The couple are joined by a series of characters over the 75 minutes. Their neighbour, a delightfully befuddled Julia Hills as Mrs Furnivall, appears first in her nightgown and face mask and later takes her spot by the kitschy bar cart and the gin (having earlier declared she doesn’t drink alcohol). She is unfortunately a good friend of Harold Gorringe, whose furniture they have borrowed and who, not long after appears himself. Simon Manyonda plays the charming antiques dealer in a pinstripe suit who, it is heavily implied, has more than just a casual friendship with Brindsley.
Carol’s father appears, lighter in tow, declaring, “This is an emergency. Anyone can see that.” “Nobody can see anything, sir, that’s the problem,” Brindsley replies. Jason Barnett is regimented as Colonel Melkett, strongly disproving of Brindsley but almost sickeningly sweet with his daughter, “Dumpling”. The moments of missed handshakes, miscommunications and missteps are rife and they come to life well on the stage.
The standout star of the show comes in Patricia Allison as Clea, Brindsley’s ex-girlfriend. In a room where everyone is falling over themselves, bumping into furniture and taking the wrong drinks, Clea is the only character that seems to be able to “see”.
Where everyone else stumbles through blindly, Allison commands the stage, slinking in silently and moving gracefully around Simon Daw’s paint-splattered stage. She is a breath of fresh air, entering the production just when it is starting to get into a routine that needs to be knocked off kilter to keep it fresh.
Even in a moment where something actually went “wrong” — a mug tapped slightly too vigorously against the railing caused it to break and fall to pieces below her — Allison navigated with ease. Just as her fellow Sex Education alumni Ncuti Gatwa (who starred in Born with Teeth and The Importance of Being Earnest at The National Theatre) and Tanya Reynolds (currently starring in a fantastic production of 1536), she has truly taken to the stage.
Farce and physical comedy can be hard enough when slights of hand and trickery can be hidden from the audience, but in an intimate space like Orange Tree this is even more of a challenge. Props go to director Caroline Steinbeis and physical comedy consultant John Nicholson for turning this constraint into an advantage and an additional platform for humour. The actors make use of every single centimetre of the stage, and even beyond, squishing themselves into the front row, handing drinks to audience members and running through the back row.
In a celebration of 100 years of Peter Shaffer, Black Comedy is currently running while Equus plays at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and next year Michael Sheen will star in Amadeus at Noel Coward Theatre — a true reflection of the breadth of Shaffer’s writing.
Full of physical comedy, quick-witted dialogue and moments of utter frenzy and chaos, Black Comedy is an excellent show of Shaffer’s comic abilities.
Black Comedy is at Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London until 11 July. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk.
