Jermyn Street, London
Long before it became trendy to attack celebrity culture, Alan Ayckbourn satirised it brilliantly in his 1988 Man of the Moment. He returned to the theme in this play, which had its Scarborough premiere in 2004: the year that The X Factor made its debut. And, even if the fame game is now madder than even Ayckbourn foresaw, it's salutary to be reminded that comedy, at its best, can have a moral purpose.
Ayckbourn's hero, Charlie Conrad, is a TV celebrity who has charm but no talent: he has risen to the top by his persistent failure, first as a middle-distance athlete and then as a hopeless quiz contestant. But Charlie's world unravels when he is caught in a compromising position with a female clown at his son's birthday party. Even if Ayckbourn takes time establishing Charlie's epic incompetence, he is very good at showing what happens when the bubble bursts. While Charlie's wife, agent and the sexually impetuous clown all benefit from his humiliating downfall, he himself retreats into a shrunken private life. Although Ayckbourn ends with a faint gesture of hope, the play burns with indignation at the way fame is now divorced from hard work and achievement.
Christopher Coghill makes Charlie a little too blandly apologetic. Otherwise, Guy Retallack's production nails all the key points. Mark Farrelly is buoyantly funny as a vain celebrity lawyer who helicopters in to destroy the charges brought by the litigious clown, played by Helen Mortimer with a touching solemnity. Emma Swain as Charlie's resentful wife and Les Dennis, who knows a thing or two about the whirligig of fame, as his agent also lend weight to a play that may not be major Ayckbourn but is one that effectively harpoons our society's elevation of the untalented.