Refuge for the desperate in Alphabetical Order

Falling into a trap: Imogen Stubbs
10 April 2012

At his best, Michael Frayn is the most humane, sensitive and intelligent of writers. This excruciating 1975 comedy does not show him at his best.

It’s not the setting — a newspaper cuttings library — that makes the play seem so dated. Or the idea newspaper employees can be selfish and stupid. It’s the suggestion that a collection of infantile caricatures could be funny.

The play won an Evening Standard award for best comedy on its first appearance at this address. Maybe comedy has moved on in 34 years even if newspapers haven’t, much. Either way, Christopher Luscombe’s hollow revival for Hampstead’s 50th anniversary season does the author, theatre, cast and audience few favours.

On her first day on an ailing, regional paper, young Lesley (Chloe Newsome) is apprenticed to the much-loved but scatter-brained Lucy (Imogen Stubbs). The ordered world of the library has slipped into chaos. The desperate, drunk and intellectually randy seek solace there and in Lucy’s martyred embraces, sexual or otherwise. Worse (ho, ho) the filing’s gone awry.

The first half has an aura of forced bonhomie, as various Grub Street stereotypes try to impress Lesley and us. "You don’t think we’re this loveable normally, do you?" Lucy says after a concerted display of sexism, indifference, arrogance and baby talk from the staff parading by. Sorry? In the second half, heartiness gives way to ear‑shredding hysteria as Lesley’s attempts to impose order come crashing down and the characters begin to behave in an even more unbelievably brattish fashion.

Frayn’s linguistic dexterity and intellectual playfulness is squandered in the mouths of idiot stereotypes. The author himself seems unsure if he’s mourning the passing of a gentler age or greeting a brave new, hard-edged professional era. I don’t even think the play has a symbolic dimension. The two-dimensional characters are what they are. Luscombe directs with technical proficiency but can’t give it warmth or more than sporadic life.

Newsome’s robotic Lesley, Gawn Grainger’s monosyllabic roué Arnold and Ian Talbot’s relentlessly chirpy messenger Geoffrey are cyphers. But the role of Lucy is a trap for Stubbs, tempting her back into all the brittle, honking, head-girlish, eye-rolling tics she has fought so long to lose. By the end, she’s yelping like a puppy.

That’s the problem with so many ill-conceived anniversary revivals. It reminds you of the least, rather than the best, all concerned are capable of.
Until 16 May (020 7722 9301).

Alphabetical Order
Hampstead Theatre
Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, NW3 3EU

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