Dressing Gown – Theatre at the Tabard

Have you been bed rotting? Are you in your dressing gown? Is it mostly clean? Are you itching to get out and get dressed, or get dressed and get out?

It’s amazing how the trappings of coziness can feel so oppressively snug when certain conditions of comfort are not met. The intimacy of the the Tabard Theatre for instance shifts into something else entirely under the influence of Andrew Cartmel’s new bedroom farce, aptly if unimaginatively titled Dressing Gown so called after its leading man’s essential predicament and sole comfort.

Jamie Hutchins stars as Ash, a theatre director whose morning recumbence is interrupted by a series of visitors who each come bearing a unique challenge to his efforts to finally clothe himself. Much like the play’s title, its characters and plot are perfectly descriptive but not particularly interesting on their own merits.

Dan (Ryan Woodcock) the pompous producer, Layla (Rosie Edwards) the insecure actor, and Jenna (Freya Alderson) the unpalatable playwright are all three distinctly but stereotypically drawn and as a result are rather tragically lacking in the chemistry that should make a comedy like this pop.

With nothing in particular to root for beyond the much portended potential return of pants but a whole host of anxieties to entertain including but not limited to the fear that Hutchins will stub an open toe somewhere on the rather over decorated but dramatically under serving set, this slapstick potentiality never materializes and the play is worse off for it, ending, despite starting and middling with nudity, without any kind of bang whatsoever.

Reviewer: Kira Daniels

Reviewed: 11th July 2024

North West End UK Rating: