The Odd Couple

 Francis Greenslade and Shaun Micallef in The Odd Couple. Photograph by Jeff Busby.

Pastel oranges, thick Bronx accents and slapstick excellence do a fine job of transporting you back to the domestic intrigues of 1960s’ New York in both form and substance. Though an epoch that many now look back at with nostalgia as ‘a simpler time’, Simon made his name as a writer who could make light of the trials and tribulations of regular life: losing work, family strife, displacement and with The Odd Couple, divorce. Simon’s writing is very much of its time but the relatability of his characters and his unselfconscious, over-the-top sense of humour means that a cast, the quality of this one, has plenty to play with.

And play they do. Francis Greenslade is the freewheeling, unkempt Oscar whose apartment is about as much order as his finances and for whom the transition to life as a divorcee has occurred, though not well. Shaun Micallef is the neurotic and needy Felix who well-meaning pedantry has just brought his twelve-year marriage to a close. When Oscar takes Felix in to show him the ropes of the bachelor life, the obvious personality clash yields the expected conflict. Greenslade and Micallef’s chemistry and brilliant comedic timing makes what could have been predictable sitcom humour a clash that is genuinely funny.

They are superbly supported by their poker circle of similarly bumbling friends who display the classic male caricatures for dealing with difficult emotional situations and as Felix and Oscar’s relationship prods them back into their marital roles, the poker school become the perfect foil of perplexed normality. Throw in the tittering Pidgeon sisters and you have everything required for a high-energy laugh-a-minute story of friendship that even a millennial sharehouse might relate too.

The pace and humour pick up notably after the interval and the on stage action, both planned and unplanned, frequently had the audience in stiches. Classic tropes of repetition, chases through the building, were well-executed and the production flourishes needed only a prickly voice-over explaining the merits of smoking to complete the playful retro treatments. The small mod touches of the British Pidgeon sisters from smoky eyes and stratospheric hair to their psychedelic dance interlude are the kind of clever nods to the past that have made other modern period pieces like ‘Down With Love’ such successes.

The Odd Couple doesn’t plumb the depths of existential angst but it doesn’t need to and frankly, you don’t want it to. It’s a riot of slapstick, outstanding comedic acting and retro nostalgia that will send you back the open wound of the present day relieved and with a smile on your face.