REVIEW: JUMPING THE SHARK at Upstairs at the Gatehouse 7 – 12 March and on tour

‘Like good sit-coms it propels its audience through a series of set-ups with a laugh at the end’ ★★★

David Cantor and Michael Kingsbury have written a strangely old fashioned, strangely well mannered play about a sit-com masterclass led by a legendary but ageing sit-com writer, in a hotel cum conference centre in a geographically ill-defined place somewhere in England. If Terence Rattigan had written a play about sit-coms, it might have felt something like this. It’s very structured, the first act curtain alludes to a past crisis and signals a second act resolution so clearly it could have a neon sign saying ‘crucial plot development’, it parades a selection of characters with cigarette-paper thin development to give the plot some material to work with, and it’s funny. Like good sit-coms it propels its audience through a series of set-ups with a laugh at the end. Like most sit-coms, there isn’t a lot more to it – Blackadder Goes Forth this is not. Maybe mid-period Open All Hours?

It is very tidily written and directed, it has extremely competent performances, with a special tip of the hat to Sarah Moyle, an actor with an extensive soap opera pedigree, who demonstrates a dazzling range of characterisations in the second half, in which the five sit-com writing wannabes workshop their first drafts and her first act character gets to play a whole bunch of roles in forty minutes.

What it doesn’t quite manage is the promise of its tag ‘Comedy is no laughing matter…’. When it tries to mine a little deeper into success and failure, compromise and exploitation, it is hampered by the shallowness of the characters it has to play with, and by the setup/ punchline tropes it both explores and exploits. It’s a very enjoyable couple of hours in a theatre, it doesn’t quite fulfil the more serious subjects it hints at. A bit like most sit-coms in fact.

Images: Robert Armstrong

JUMPING THE SHARK a new comedy by David Cantor and Michael Kingsbury (who also directs)

Cast: David Schaal, Harry Visinoni, Sarah Moyle, Jasmine Armfield, Robin Sebastian, Jack Trueman

LONDON

Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Highgate Village

Tuesday 7 March - Sunday 12 March

BOX OFFICE: 020 8340 3488

https://upstairsatthegatehouse.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173639081

Edinburgh

Rose Theatre

Tuesday 14 - Saturday 18 March

https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/

Tunbridge Wells

Tunbridge Wells Theatre

Thursday 23 — Saturday 25 March

https://www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk/whats-on/jumping-the-shark

Basingstoke

The Haymarket

Tuesday 28 March – Saturday 1 April

https://www.anvilarts.org.uk/whats-on/event/jumping-the-shark

Reviewed by Chris Lilly