Sistine sitcom

A rush of air. A mighty whooshing. That was the noise that filled my ears during the opening five minutes of On the Ceiling. It was the horrid turbulence of weighty ideas being picked up and flung earthwards to no good effect. Nigel Planer’s new comedy has such a brilliant and simple theme that you wish it’d been thought up by anyone other than him. We’re in Rome at the height of the Renaissance. Michelangelo is engaged in the greatest mission of his life, the painting of the Sistine ceiling. Two assistants, awaiting their absent employer, idle away the hours discussing the maestro’s abilities, his character and his place in the history of art. Serious and fascinating material which Planer transforms into an unserious, anti-fascinating mess. He gives the two paint-mixers silly names, Loopy and Lippy, or something like that. One is played by Ralf Little, an actor of enormous charm and charisma. The other is played by Ron Cook, an actor. Their bickering, bantering relationship owes a huge debt to the fine tradition of British sitcoms where two emotionally stunted men become friends as a surrogate for female company: I’m thinking of Del Boy and Rodney, Fletch and Godber, the Steptoes and those two lads from Newcastle. But the ‘fine tradition’ always struck me as constricted and a little sad, and Planer hasn’t the wit to hoist the characters out of the sentimental shallows. Rather than make the two friends bright, perceptive or curious, he draws them as surly philistine halfwits. At the heart of the play is Lippy, a jabbering know-all who minces around the stage doing a Kenneth Williams impersonation (don’t ask me why) and pillorying Michelangelo for being a) gay and b) gifted. Sadder still, Planer has taken huge and very obvious pains with his researches.