The Prisoner of Second Avenue
Vaudeville, until 25 September
Lingua Franca
Finborough, until 7 August
Neil Simon has received more nominations from Oscar and Tony than any other dramatist in history, so his comedies ought to be playing constantly in London. But revivals of his plays are rarities. Something of the Simonian essence seems to fall off the plane mid-Atlantic. Perhaps it’s the awareness that we’ve seen his favourite terrain, bourgeois anguish, charted more vividly and tellingly by homegrown talents. Simon’s conception of human character is fundamentally soppy. More trickster than magician, he builds his drama by postulating secure, loving relationships and smothering them in frothy layers of petty bickering.
This succeeds in maintaining our interest because the characters’ cordiality never alienates us, but it never challenges us, either. He’s not a searcher but a comforter. He hasn’t the caustic graces of Mike Leigh nor the heaven-sent scattiness of Alan Bennett nor Tom Stoppard’s super-intelligent curiosity.
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