Theatre / Bedroom Farce, written by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Aarne Neeme. At Canberra Rep Theatre, Acton, until March 7. Reviewed by SIMONE PENKETHMAN. 

Bedroom Farce is a 1975 play by prolific and acclaimed English Playwright Alan Ayckbourn.

Director Aarne Neeme has a long association with Canberra Rep lasting over 40 years. Canberra Rep first staged this show in 1981.

All this history begs the question: is it like flogging a dead horse to remount this old English show here and now?

Bedroom Farce is true to its name in that all the action takes place in three bedrooms. The ensemble consists of four married couples spanning two generations.

From the opening scene, in the bedroom of the oldest couple, Ernest (Pat Gallagher) and Delia (Sally Rynveld) the laugh-out-loud moments are fresh and timeless.

As they prepare to go out for their annual wedding-anniversary dinner, the husband and wife replay the age-old trope of holding a genial conversation in which each is talking about a completely different subject.

In the second room, Malcolm (Lachlan Abrahams) and Kate (Antonia Kitzel) prepare for their house-warming party. They exchange excited banter and play mischievous tricks on each other.

But there is a foreboding friction in Malcolm’s disapproval of Kate having extended their invitation to the unstable and argumentative young couple, Trevor (James Grudnoff) and Susannah (Lara Connolly).

In bedroom number 3, Nick (Rob de Fries) is writing in pain from a sudden back injury while his wife, Jan (Azerie Cromhout) explains that she is going to the party without him.

De Fries’ gives a funny and excruciating portrayal of Nick’s agony from both his physical injury and his emotional outrage that his wife is abandoning him in his hour of need to attend a party where her ex-boyfriend Trevor will also be a guest.

The text is tight and clever and avoids the chauvinistic jokes that were common in British comedy of its era. The relationships are all human and relatable to today’s audience.

Act 1 leaves the audience on a high.

But act 2 is disappointing. Much of the comedy is lost. Ernest, Nick and Malcolm descend into rage as their nights are all destroyed by the “me generation” selfishness and dysregulated behaviour of Trevor and Susannah.

There are moments when the text suggests a lighter British humour, where some of the rage could be restrained by politeness and the selfishness tempered by the kind of awkward cluelessness we may recall from Frank Spencer or Rowan Atkinson.

Nonetheless Ayckbourn’s text stands the test of time and the mirth of act 1 is truly heartwarming.