Meandering, flat and witless: Plaza Suite, at the Savoy Theatre, reviewed

Plaza Suite is a sketch show by Neil Simon set in a luxury New York hotel in 1968. The play is rarely revived and it’s never been staged in the West End before. Simon’s idea (which Noël Coward accused him of stealing from his play Suite in Three Keys) is to place a trio of unrelated stories in the same hotel room. Simon struggles to find good endings for his set-ups and he keeps scribbling page after page of chit-chat in the hope of stumbling on a decent exit-line. He can’t do it. The dialogue sounds true to life but it’s also meandering, flat and witless – the sort of drivel you’d overhear in a vet’s waiting room. The hotel suite, designed by John Lee Beatty, is a sumptuous gold fantasy with flock wallpaper, sparkling chandeliers and a host of sidelights wearing little tasselled bonnets. In the 1960s, this gorgeous spread might have looked elegant and sophisticated but now it screams Trump Tower.