With Calendar Girls, writer Tim Firth proved himself the master portrayer of a slightly simplified England, a well-meaning, gently witty place that overcomes deep sadness with tea-breaks and team spirit. There's more of the same, although on a much smaller scale, in this hard-to-dislike, harder-to-love two-hander about the changing world of work.
Sign of the Times began 20 years ago as a one-act play and stretched now over two hours in Peter Wilson's pleasant production it looks over-extended. The first act virtually stands alone as would-be writer Frank (Matthew Kelly), a fastidious middle-aged sign installer for the sort of cosy company that tends only to exist in fiction, tries to instil a love of bracketing systems into recalcitrant work experience teenager and would-be artist Alan (Gerard Kearns from Shameless). We guess long before the unsuspecting Frank what his latest sign is bound to spell out.
Act Two jolts the unlikely lads forward three years and takes some wry pot-shots at today's brutal employment climate, with its management speak and soul-sapping preference for services over skills. Kelly and Kearns are far better than this affable nonsense, but do their eager best to distract us from these men's weirdly context-free lives. What happens to Frank and Alan at work appears to have no bearing on the rest of their existence, which ultimately ceases to matter as their professional lives strain credulity too.
"Quite amiable" was the conclusion of the lady sitting behind me at a preview, and she's exactly right.
Until May 28 (0844 412 4659, nimaxtheatres.com)
Sign Of The Times
Duchess Theatre
Catherine Street, WC2B 5LA
