BOEING BOEING AT THE ARTS THEATRE
Nathalie Barclay as the gorgeous Gabriella
Boeing Boeing is a farce full of fun - and it is inevitably French. Constructed with cunning skill this plot begins with an elaborate plan for life and accelerates into carefully crafted chaos - with a lot of laughs on the way.Bek Palmer’s supersonic set steals the show from the start. It is a dream of a 60s bachelor pad - in Paris. Two impressive Arne Jacobsen Egg Chairs dominate the stage - whilst the seven doors hint at the mayhem to come.
Bernard, the suave architect at the centre of the action thinks he has the space -age love life any man would envy. John Dorney convinces his first visitor in years, old school pal Robert, that his plan to run no fewer than three gorgeous women at once, is the ideal life for any man; Bernard is engaged to to all of them - but has no intention , he tells the incredulous Robert ( brilliantly played by Paul Sandys ) of getting married. Why would he? He has the perfect set up ‘ in the bedroom and in the kitchen’ where his long suffering maid prepares meals to suit his Italian, American and German girlfriends.
John Dorney as Bernard with old school friend Paul Sandys as Robert
All the women are all on rotation. Bernard likes the mathematical precision of their arrivals and departures. He has them all stored in the timetable of world flights, for each of the gorgeous girls is an air hostess with a strict schedule . It allows Bernard to swap them round with precision.. And whilst this appears unlikely, I think we all know men ( even women) who , with a reliable timetable would enjoy their lovers’s arrivals in regular rotation. LIke the very elements themselves, the it is a cosmic arrangement” “Pure mathematics.” he boasts to the amazed Robert, “Everything designed, organised regulated and working to the precise second. The earth revolves on its axis and my fiancées wheel above the earth. One this way, One that. One towards the sun. One towards thermion. And eventually they all , in turn come home to me”
Male megalomania or what?
Gorgeous Bernard is in for a series of nasty shocks and announces at one point he is beyond a panic attack. The girls in his life are the stuff of fantasies in their stunning hostess uniforms, Gloria from TWA , Gabriella from Italian Airlines and Gretchen the German bombshell from Lufthansea. Red, Blue and yellow , colours echoed in the fabulous set. As the play progresses and Bernard waxes more frazzled and desperate, the once - hapless Robert has all the romantic action - and the denouement takes in his own moral journey as well as his nascent self confidence
At the epicentre of these quasi-cosmic events is the fateful perceptive and put-upon maid Bertha, played with increasing hilarity by Jo Castleton. She is the pivot of the play and her no-nonsense straight talking Yorkshire delivery undercuts the histrionics of the less than self aware airline ladies. She literally steals the show with her down to earth skepticism , a brilliant foil for the out of this world pretensions of her employer.
Isabella Della - Porta as fast talking Gloria exudes overwhelming yankee dynamism, whilst Jessica Dennis’ Gretchen is so melodramatic as she postures her way through her own delusions she storms her role and has the best lines and funniest wooden delivery of all. - it is a relief to watch her change into a real human being and fall in love. Finally Nathalie Barclay is adorable and truly genuine as Gabriellla a real Italian with a believable charm and sense of what is tolerable and what is out of order. A great performance.
Berenard’s Boeing Boeing ’s core plot is thrown off course by an improvement in airline technology.Airline times shorten, the centre cannot hold . The years since its début have not dimmed its comic impact. There is much more to this play than farce, truths that lie to deep for laughs, but it will still have you entertained during a fun -filled evening.
On at the Arts until Saturday 16th July
