I am going to deal with this Act by Act but an important fact about the play that I became aware of only later was that it was a complete re-writing of Sheridan’s The Rivals, this time set on an estate (owner one Mrs. Malaprop) on whom were based an RAF crew. This helps to explain some of the modern/post-modern aspects but does not excuse the desperately feeble way they were used. The author, information again found out much later, was the creator of the phenomenally successful One Man, Two Guv’nors and, with hindsight, the NT are clearly trying to reproduce the effect of that play.
Act 1 was execrable/dire/almost unspeakably awful/insert derogatory term of choice. After 30 minutes I was saying to myself ‘did no-one read the script before agreeing to produce. There were four (unfunny) ‘shit’ jokes in the first hour (never a good sign when you are counting bad aspects of a play as it unfolds…). The infrequent (and dramatically incoherent) ‘breaking of the fourth wall’ was pretentious but there presumably to flatter the audience that they were experiencing something a bit radical in the theatre, the lower class characters had occasional heavy-handed political asides, reminding us of their role and nature and the malapropisms (not a form of humour I find very funny at the best of times) were tired and labored. However, the climax of the Act was superb – it was a film/image evocation of a 2nd WW dogfight, using the back and sides of the massive stage to superb effect so that one was really immersed in the action. All in B & W (of course) and mixing cinematic facial close-ups with images of clouds and swooping planes. This was a wonderful, powerful immersive experience which brought the first Act to a fantastic conclusion – but at the end I was thinking how sad it was that such skill and technical prowess had been spent on such a poor piece.
However Act 2, I must admit, was much better. It suddenly seemed to find some emotional heft and power, not least in the dark ending which those many reviewers who loved the play (??!!) found unconvincing. Not for me. The little scene early on about ‘leaving the blood on the plane after the return from the end-of-Act 1 dogfight was particularly powerful and the Indian character seemed to gain a little depth that was missing from his caricatured appearance in Act 1.
Sadly though, I felt the play pandered to the lowest common denominator – and the audience was VERY 60-plus/white/’nicely dressed’ etc etc. – so it will probably be a great hit. And there was even ‘a real TV star (Caroline Quentin) in it as Mrs. Malaprop to add the icing to the cake; she was fine incidentally and did what she could with what she was given.