Roger Allam brings the biggest laughs to Ayckbourn’s tour de force
Roger Allam brings the biggest laughs to Ayckbourn’s tour de force
Marianka SwainWed, August 12, 2026 at 12:20 PM UTC
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Roger Allam as terminally vague businessman Frank - Manuel Harlan
What could be funnier than one excruciating dinner party? Try two – played simultaneously. That’s the masterstroke of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1969 farce How the Other Half Loves, as a pair of marital cheaters find their alibis tested when their suspicious respective spouses each invite round a hapless third couple. Ayckbourn’s still-formally daring conceit is staging these hilariously doomed soirées, which take place on successive nights, in a single tour-de-force set-piece.
It’s the highpoint of this affectionate Old Vic revival, which returns the 87-year-old playwright’s formative work to London for the first time in a decade. Phillip Breen’s production is in the round, as originally intended, heightening our voyeuristic sense of peeking behind the suburban net curtains. It also adds to the technical demands of this time-bending, truth-twisting show, which gives Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey a run for its money.
It’s skilfully navigated by a terrific cast, although pacing is an issue – a combination of Ayckbourn’s rather laborious writing and some line flubs by Roger Allam. But the Thick of It star also provides the biggest laughs with his terminally vague businessman Frank, who grasps the wrong end of every possible stick yet keeps paternalistically dispensing advice. Allam makes a sumptuous meal out of lines such as: “Darling, crisis! We’re out of bathroom stationery,” while lending poignancy to his bleak summation of marriage: “It’s better than nothing.”
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Dorothy Atkinson is brilliant as Frank’s adulterous wife, Fiona - Manuel Harlan
Such dissatisfaction is tragically pervasive. As Frank’s adulterous wife Fiona, Dorothy Atkinson brilliantly channels Penelope Keith’s Margo Leadbetter at her most majestically withering, but her fury stems from frustration: she is desperate to be seen by her husband, and to escape this stifling middle-class domesticity. Ayesha Antoine’s Teresa is likewise embittered, trapped with an anarchic infant and penning angry letters to The Guardian (a witty contrast to stalwart Telegraph readers Frank and Fiona), as is her restless lothario husband, Bob (Rowan Polonski).
The insidious misogyny reaches its apex with socially ambitious bully William (an apoplectic Adam Gillen), who nastily slaps his wife’s hand when she disappoints him. Laura Elsworthy is both hysterical and heartbreaking as mousy, painfully shy Mary, quite literally scared stiff when faced with horrors such as making small talk or consuming dry sherry.
Rob Howell supplies eye-popping design, from a turquoise landline to orange stripes, flares and, memorably, Allam’s skimpy running shorts. This is firmly embraced as a period piece, though Ayckbourn’s sharp observations about class, matrimonial malaise, gender inequality and English repression still hit home. It’s a reminder that this genius writer delivers his comedy with a sting in the tail.
Until Sept 19. Tickets: 0344 871 7628; oldvictheatre.com
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
