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Brian and Roger – A Highly Offensive Play

Menier Chocolate Factory

Reviewed – 1st November 2021

★★★★★

“scales the dizzy heights of funny”

“Brian & Roger”, that carries the subtitle a ‘Highly Offensive Play’, opens the Menier Chocolate Factory’s new smaller space, The Mixing Room. It is a world premiere, but its seeds were planted back in 2014 when the writers, Dan Skinner and Harry Peacock, created the characters for a podcast series. “We had no idea if anybody would listen or care” Skinner recently said. Thankfully they did, and it is to theatreland’s immense benefit that the eponymous characters have now made it to the stage.

Firstly. It is not highly offensive. It is ‘highly’ many things though; highly charged, highly outrageous, highly shocking, highly unprincipled, highly shameless and above all it scales the dizzy heights of funny. The ideas are far-fetched, but you’d travel the earth to keep up with them. The premise is bleak but don’t let that put you off. Brian and Roger are two friends (assume a very loose definition of the word ‘friend’) who met at a support group for recently divorced men. Roger was attending because he was genuinely grieving the loss of his marriage; Brian was instructed to attend by his solicitor if he wanted to dodge paying alimony to his ex-wife. Roger needs guidance and support, which Brian willingly supplies, exploiting Roger’s vulnerability to the extreme. Roger is continually coerced into making bad decisions. Played by Skinner himself, it is a brilliant and hilarious portrayal of a man sinking into the depths of humiliation and injury, with a Panglossian gullibility and belief in the deplorable Brian’s intentions. Simon Lipkin is equally sensational as the hard-nosed but similarly desperate Brian who has found the perfect stooge in Roger. Never has such an unlikeable character been so… well… likeable.

We don’t witness the odd couple’s first meeting. In fact, we never see them together at all. The entire piece is played out on their phones – leaving messages for each other. There is one exception – although we still don’t ‘see’ them together as the scene takes place in a complete blackout. I shall reveal no more except to say that it is a brilliantly darkly funny episode.

Darkness is the key. The humour couldn’t be blacker as Skinner and Lipkin chase the extremes of comedy. It gets progressively more outlandish, as do the peripheral unseen characters who nevertheless loom large over the action, whether it is the octogenarian woman whose sofa Roger lives on, the students Brian is forced to shack up with; the ex-wives, the dominatrices, and gangsters. Even a Mongolian mule named after Roger’s wife! Belief is persistently stretched to breaking point by the sheer outrageousness of the plot. At the same time our laughter lines are stretched even further.

David Babani’s direction is slick, with many neat ideas. It is clear that he has worked closely with his design team. Paul Anderson’s lighting conveys mood and location with the flamboyant touch of a mad professor, brilliantly complemented by Timothy Bird’s projected backdrops. Robert Jones’ design is centred around the drab community meeting room where the pair met. Ingeniously and quirkily though, the play is never set there. Instead, the furnishings and video projections are used to convey – among other bizarre settings – an S&M basement, a hospital ICU, train carriages, taxi cabs, a rugged Eastern European Mountain village, abattoirs, Safari parks, airports… you name it. And to say that the use of props is out of the box is a bit of an understatement. The whole combination, topped off with Gregory Clarke’s soundscape, verges on the surreal.

As preposterous as the storyline is, we are somehow still anchored in real life by the sheer natural flow of Harry Peacock and Dan Skinner’s writing. On paper, the idea of spending two hours watching two sad men talk into their phones sounds like torture. But we are rapt. Skinner and Lipkin are stunning. “Brian & Roger – A Highly Offensive Play”: the idea that one wouldn’t want to see it is more offensive.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Nobby Clark

Brian and Roger – A Highly Offensive Play

Menier Chocolate Factory until 18th December

Show reviews you may have missed in October:

Dumbledore Is So Gay | ★★½ | Online | October 2021

Back To The Future | ★★★★ | Adelphi Theatre | October 2021

Roots | ★★★★★ | Wilton’s Music Hall | October 2021

The Witchfinder’s Sister | ★★★ | Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch | October 2021

Rice | ★★★★ | Orange Tree Theatre | October 2021

The Cherry Orchard | ★★★★ | Theatre Royal Windsor | October 2021

Love And Other Acts Of Violence | ★★★★ | Donmar Warehouse | October 2021

Yellowfin | ★★★★ | Southwark Playhouse | October 2021

Brief Encounter | ★★★ | Watermill Theatre Newbury | October 2021

One Man Poe | ★★★ | The Space | October 2021

Dorian | ★★★★ | Reading Rep Theatre | October 2021

Flushed | ★★★★ | Park Theatre | October 2021

Lights Out | ★★★★ | Pleasance Theatre | October 2021

Night Mother | ★★★★ | Hampstead Theatre | October 2021

Tender Napalm | ★★★★★ | King’s Head Theatre | October 2021

Vinegar Tom | ★★★ | The Maltings Theatre | October 2021

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★★★

“Guettel’s score is drenched in a lush, autumnal style, with orchestrations that are truly gorgeous”

The Light in the Piazza lands in its London premiere with a level of prestige – it scooped up no less than six Tony Awards during its Broadway run in 2005. While the musical consequently carries with it an inherent air of quality, it also finds itself emblematic of the genre as a whole, as it glosses over and romanticises subject matter which deserves a little more nuance.

Based on the 1960 novel by Elizabeth Spencer (which was also released as a film two years later), The Light in the Piazza follows the journey of Margaret Johnson (Renée Fleming), whose developmentally disabled daughter Clara (Dove Cameron) falls in love while the pair are on holiday in Florence with Fabrizio Naccarelli (Rob Houchen). Margaret grapples with letting go of her child and allowing her to live independently with Fabrizio, although in doing so she never fully discloses the nature of Clara’s disability to the Naccarelli family; it’s a decision that comes with huge ethical implications and ramifications, albeit ones that the show seems quite happy to ignore.

Adam Guettel’s score is drenched in a lush, autumnal style, with orchestrations that are truly gorgeous, and Kimberly Grigsby’s conducting makes the music feel like it fully lives and breathes with the characters and the story. Despite that the style starts to feel somewhat overfamiliar in the latter half the show, there are still a variety of hugely enjoyable numbers, such as Say It Somehow and Let’s Walk. Guettel’s lyrics and Craig Lucas’ libretto are full of quirks, wit, and humanity, but neither feel like they genuinely facilitate any true depth to the themes or characters. Despite this, there are some excellent performances on display in Piazza, particularly Fleming as Margaret, who keeps guilt and uncertainty bubbling underneath a frothy exterior, and Alex Jennings as Signor Naccarelli, whose charm and self-assuredness beautifully counterbalances the more melodramatic facets of the other characters. Every single member of the cast delivers immaculate vocals, and Robert Jones’ scenic design and Mark Henderson’s lighting harmoniously provide some stunning aesthetics. Piazza is undoubtedly a visual and aural treat.

However, the substance simply isn’t there to support it. Understanding and misunderstanding are prominent themes in Piazza – the Johnsons don’t speak great Italian and the Naccarellis don’t speak great English so their meanings aren’t always perfectly conveyed to each other, and some scenes and songs are entirely in Italian, so that the audience have to rely on the visual storytelling alone (which, thanks to Daniel Evans’ direction, is stellar). It suggests that the love between Clara and Fabrizio transcends barriers such as language or disability, but the fact that Fabrizio falls so swiftly for a woman with the mental and emotional capacities of a twelve-year-old draws allusions to the seedy over-sexualisation of young girls in society, and the fact that Fabrizio isn’t made aware of long-term effects that the disability will have on the relationship makes the romance feel unearned and untrue. And unfortunately, Piazza hinges itself on the romance.

Reviewed by Tom Francis

Photography by Dewynters