This week
French and Saunders, New Theatre, Oxford
No one needs to be told who Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are. They have, as Dawn told us at one point, been performing together for 30 years and have had huge successes on television both separately and together. The Vicar of Dibley and Absolutely Fabulous were classics, and over the years, their returning series French and Saunders was often genuinely funny.
I therefore went to the New Theatre last week with high hopes - that they could not possibly disappoint on stage as they did a decade or so ago when they were singly and jointly still big. Absolutely no change to be reported.
They were funny for the first 25 minutes, establishing their ditzy personas, then - while seemingly working hard all the time - they missed most marks. There was a constant and lazy use of videos. They were farmers in a courtroom sketch. Not much laughter. There was a sketch being rude about Americans and what is in their fridges.
By and large, silence. There was, I felt, unease in the theatre. I heard my neighbour ask: "Who's writing their material?"
Easy laughs did however come when a gigantic Dibley vicar was dragged on stage by Dawn, and there were loud expressions of appreciative recognition when Jennifer adopted her Edina role from AbFab. An excruciating parody of Strictly Come Dancing went down well, and the show's closing sketch (the two dirty old men, this time with actual flapping willies) went down a storm for some reason.
Here is one joke which showed the general vacuity of the proceedings: "I'll punch you so hard on your fanny, it'll end up on your face. Oh, excuse me, it already has!" This pair, remember, used to be cutting edge.
Nevertheless, they sold out three consecutive evenings at the New Theatre.
2:27pm Wednesday 7th May 2008
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