Posted in: Comics, Pop Culture | Tagged: Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Dressing Gown, london, stage, theatre

Review: Dressing Gown, A Play About A Play That Might Go Wrong

Dressing Gown with Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Jenny Eastop, Jamie Hitchins, Ryan Woodcock, Freya Alderson and Rosie Edwards

Dressing Gown is a drawing-room farce about itself, kinda. Written by Doctor Who writer and comic book writer Andrew Cartmel, directed by Jenny Eastop, and presented – whatever that means – by Rivers Of London's Ben Aaronovitch, I managed to utterly miss this when it was on two years ago at the Tabard due to my incompetence, and I'm very grateful it came back this year at the Union Theatre in Southwark. Because it is a really good modern-day farce, which does its very best to be timeless as well. Oh, look, and it has a flyer by cartoonist Robert Hammond.

Dressing Gown won Best Director and was nominated for Best Ensemble Cast in the London Pub Theatre Awards 2024, and I can see why. Thankfully, this is the same cast two years on; they know the show well, and even though this is a short run, everyone is on point, every beat works perfectly, and everyone just bounces off each other. Sometimes literally. This is getting the gang back together to do something that they really enjoy. And I was so happy to enjoy it with them, front row seats, because I hung around the doors as they opened. This was not my first rodeo at the Union Theatre. There are no assigned places, double seat, double seat, gotta get a double seat.

Set in the flat of a theatre producer, Tom Asher, played by Jamie Hutchins, working on a small play, Bearded Vulture (we never really get close to an explanation for that title), it recognises, from bitter experience, I presume, that plays are fragile creatures. There are so many things that can go wrong, and if just one of them does, the whole thing collapses. And in Dressing Gown, they all happen in one morning in Ash's flat when he is still in his dressing gown. It's a beautiful visual device that separates him from the rest of the cast, the producer, the writer and the actor. It also features notes of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy's Arthur Dent and the first appearance of David Tennant's Doctor Who. Because Ash is a man who is going to have to get involved and fix things, even if he really doesn't have time for this.

Asher is the Voice of Reason, being orbited by chaos, the angry, passionate producer Dan played by Ryan Woodcock, the ditzy writer Jenna played by Freya Alderson, and the needy actor Layla played by Rosie Edwards. Individually, they have their own distinct relationships with Asher, as well as each other, and it's how those lines intersect, block, unravel and get knotted up with each other that delivers a farce of such mathematical complexity. And hardly anyone needs to take their clothes off, without a dressing gown to get in the way.

The play delivers a very heightened reality. The first few minutes with Ash and producer Dan felt a little broad in comedic terms for me, but that was my fault; I had to get my brain into the rhythm, and once I did, everything slotted together, like LEGO or Traitors. So we have a producer who believes the director is sleeping with the producer's girlfriend, the actor, already an HR issue. If they were big enough to have an HR department. The writer told the producers about the suspected affair because she got the words wrong, even as she is obsessed with the actors getting her words wrong. And the actor, incensed that the producer thinks she is sleeping with the director, intends to sleep with the director as an act of revenge. The only person who remains honest is Tom, in his dressing gown; he has very little to hide and nowhere to hide it. He is the most vulnerable of all. And no one, simply no one, will let him get dressed. Oh and the lock on his door has broken.

Oh yes, there is one other major figure, one other unseen actor, Miles, whose presence is also affecting everyone's relationships, and who must be dealt with, a fourth leg of the fragile creature, giving us an extraordinary phone call made by Ash, in the presence of Dan, which may be worth the entire ticket price for those two minutes.

Dressing Room shows us that we may all believe that we are the hero in our own story, but forget we may not be in others, and that incompetence is usually a more likely explanation than malevolence. There are definitely moments of comparison to Mischief Theatre's Cornwell Amateur Dramatics plays, where the ambition of a production meets the individual ambitions of the characters involved with it, but Dressing Gown doesn't go for such big theatrical set pieces of farce, when you can just drag yourself to the front door in your dressing gown. And even when the characters are at their most venal, they are never actually mean. Which makes for a feel-good play without the crippling cringe that farce often finds compulsory. It's just finding the fun that more people than you would expect wearing dressing gowns in any given situation would bring.

One act, around an hour and ten minutes, a small theatre with no restricted views or impossible heights, Dressing Gown is running for one more week at the Union Theatre. Don't make my mistake and miss it, there is no guarantee it will be on again in another two years.

Dressing Gown

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Review by Rich Johnston

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8/10

Dressing Gown is a drawing-room farce about itself, by Andrew Cartmel. If you missed it in 2024, catch it again in 2026. Don't wait another two years...

Credits

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Writer

Andrew Cartmel

Director

Jenny Eastop

Actor

Jamie Hitchins

Actor

Ryan Woodcock

Actor

Freya Alderson

Actor

Rosie Edwards

Producer

Ben Aaronovitch

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