Comedy not one to cheer

NO DINNER FOR SINNERS, Lyceum Theatre

Well, it has a nice catchy title, a couple of attractive young ladies not entirely fully clothed, the author probably gets free Cheerios from Nestlé for the plug he gives them and the set-up is actually quite imaginative and up-to-date.

But I might as well get right on and admit that this is probably the worst play I’ve seen for some time.

If it was up to me, author Edward Taylor would certainly be buying his own Cheerios. In fact, I’d probably insist he wrote them out of the script entirely.

The breakfast cereal is one of many wild leaps of plot that stretch Taylor’s fairly slack comedy beyond breaking point.

The writer has Jim (Michael Greavy, too laid-back and lacking presence), the head of a stockbroking firm, entertaining his American boss and the man’s wife (Terry Biltcliffe and Tricia Pemberton). He offers Cheerios as substitute nibbles as he has nothing more suitable.

We are supposed to believe the guests haven’t a clue they are the cereal — even though the product has been a top US brand since the 1940s. How likely is that?

This is one of several illogical devices — a computer conveniently offstage (so characters can get on and off), a girlfriend (Ruth Blaszczok, very confident, even in her underwear) so quick to blow up she’s borderline unbalanced, a terrible cook, a dopey char (Sue Garlick, in a particularly hideous dress), a secretary with more on her mind than work (Faye McLaughlin) and more, that make the comedy very strained.

Taylor even cops out of an imaginative ending by using one of the oldest in the book — blackmail.

There are laughs, of course: the players eventually make some sense of a play that starts out a fairly ordinary domestic comedy then lurches into underpowered farce mode in the second half, and does neither very well. Where’s Ray Cooney when we need him?

Despite the evening being under the direction of old-hand Nigel Marland — who can usually be relied on to make the best of a bad script — this isn’t one for the scrapbook.