Payback time
Although director Dusan Farrington is well aware of Can't Pay Won't Pay's fortuitous link with student fees, he resists cashing in on this. He keeps the setting in contemporary Milan, where inflation is rocketing and Antonia and Margherita, two housewives are hoarding like squirrels. He admits he was tempted to set it in an Oxford student house, but fortunately he didn't: in a play centred on farce and escapism, the last thing you'd want to be confronted with is a recreation of your own grisly student digs.
The play is frankly silly. This renders its message 'fight for your rights' pretty nominal. It actually seems to be more about good jokes, and these abound, as the housewives decide to hide their stolen food up their tops, faking pregnancy (disastrously) when, in a rather more lighthearted way than in J. B. Priestley's play, the inspector calls.
Another heavily post-feminist theme emerges more readily, as much of the humour hinges on it. The women may be housewives, but they milk their subordinate position to the full, turning their roles as wives, child-bearers and general unpaid labourers into a sure fire means of attack. Any bloke who dares to interfere with their schemes immediately finds himself backed into the corner, and severely ticked off for messing with women's matters.
The latent comedy in this is well carried by a feisty performance by Annemarie Gosling and a brilliantly pouting and whimpering Sarah Thompson.
Nick Lesiecki brings a superbly sneering Ryan Stiles-quality to his performance as the Inspector. While Roland Oakshell, as Giovanni, is a suitably 'salt of the earth' cockney.
However, the script's comic potential is never quite realised. There is an insufficient variety of tone, so less outstanding jokes fall flat. Also, the cast seem generally unsure about what body language should accompany their pelting one-liners.
Still, while your sides may not exactly be splitting, the play's crazy plot and full on farce should certainly arouse some sniggers.
ry