Don’t Take the Pith

Having received five-star reviews and been a finalist in last year’s Best Comedy London Pub Theatre Awards, expectations were high for Canonbie Productions’ latest show Don’t Take the Pith at the Drayton Arms pub in West London.   

The company had me chuckling before curtain up as I glanced over the theatre website and spotted the content warnings which included: Potentially excessive cream costuming; historically awkward colonial views; contemporary lefty views on colonialism; actual sand on stage; I think there’s a single “bollocks”; Excessive meta-anachronistic references; flashing/strobing lights (on a fringe budget); mild sequel vibes. 

Set in the year nineteen hundred, Lady Susan Bloom & self-proclaimed ‘wit, rake and raconteur’ Lord Sebastian Hardcastle are summoned by The Crown to the colonial island of Not-Borneo. “It’s not a million miles away from Borneo, but it’s somewhere you definitely haven’t been and so you’re entirely unqualified to criticise our depiction of non-Western European civilisations”

The talisman of the local tribe has gone missing – and the list of suspects is made up of a bunch of unlikely characters.  This production has all the traits of an Agatha Christie style whodunnit and classic stereotypes including the bumbling Lord Peter de Meur aptly played by Richard Rycroft and the exuberant Lady Fleur de Meur played by Laura Morgan who manages to add an extra helping of sauce to every sentence.  The hapless Maid Maud Pauper delivers a well-rehearsed Mrs. Overall routine, with highly focussed concentration on a tray of empty plastic glasses which inevitably fall to the floor.  She speaks with a broad northern accent which is, from time to time ‘translated’ by Lady Susan Bloom who declares upon her arrival that she “speaks a little northern” although admits her “written northern is better than her spoken northern”.  Beautifully played by Helen Bang with impeccable comic timing. 

This farce was a little slow to get going, but act two certainly came to life with well-drilled Fawlty Towers-esque wordplay and enough double entendre to sink a ship in Carry on Cruising. Eric Barker would be proud! “I like a well-trimmed bush” and “You can take me up the crevice” only scratched the surface. 

The play was littered with some wonderful lines including a jibe at disgraced royal Prince Andrew “The fiddler one who pretended he couldn’t sweat” which brought the house down.