Review of Al Murray, Mel Giedroyc and more in Restoration-style farce

Veteran comedy writer Simon Nye, creator of Men Behaving Badly, has followed the standard character arc for men of a certain age and has gotten really into history, diving deeper into the past with each recent project.

His new play The Crown Jewels has unearthed a swashbuckling historical footnote concerning the anti-monarchist aristocrat Colonel Blood, and his attempt to steal the Crown Jewels from one of England’s most flamboyant kings, Charles II.

The play’s events take place in the restoration period, a time of cultural permissiveness that followed the death of Oliver Cromwell and the return of the monarchy. Plays from that time have a particular, bawdy, fun-loving flavour, which Nye and his cast are seeking to replicate for the modern day. The production begins with Carrie Hope Fletcher belting out a song and then emptying the contents of a chamber pot over the front row.

For much of the first half, the relentless euphemisms overwhelm any chance of real comedy, and it’s hard to sustain excitement with repeated uses of baked goods shaped like a cock and balls.

In the star-studded cast, only Al Murray as Charles II really pops, and he’s largely off-stage until the midway point. It’s a cast where almost everyone seems simultaneously underused, especially Men Behaving Badly’s Neil Morrissey as accomplice Captain Perrot and The Inbetweeners' Joe Thomas as Thomas Blood Jr., not doing much with the not much he’s given to do.

Things look up after the first hour as the focus shifts away from Blood and his gang. Al Murray plays Charles II as Austin Powers in gold shoes and a towering wig, and the play is undeniably at its best when it stops dead for ten minutes and gives him space to work the crowd.

After decades of engaging with people as the Pub Landlord, you can tell he’s having huge fun playing with a new character, wringing the laughs from his pronunciation of ‘Crine Jewels’ and selecting audience members to be brought back to his chambers.

Mel Giedroyc gets a bit of business as well, as an unnamed fancy French lady – a character who otherwise has precisely zero impact on the narrative or the play as a whole. The pretext is thin as all hell but it’s nice to see her working her charisma on stage.

Adonis Siddique’s very minor role as a nervous courtier also has an outsized impact, getting big laughs with his facial expressions even when he’s just moving scenery around.

In all, it’s a hodgepodge, mixing groaners (‘Marriage – the not-so-civil war!’) with some decent bits, careening from musical to crowd work to puppetry, always in search of the obvious laugh and sometimes finding it.

If you were being charitable you could say that it’s an homage to Restoration theatre – a cheerful sense of bawdiness redone for a (relatively) modern audience. It doesn’t feel very current though. The humour’s located somewhere between Men Behaving Badly and Carry

On, and the climax comes out of nowhere with a confusing pro-monarchist, Rule Britannia sentiment that feels out of step with the times we live in and the context of the play.

• The Crown Jewels is booking at the Garrick Theatre, London, to September 16. Tickets. All pictures © Hugo Glendinning

Review date: 1 Aug 2023
Reviewed by: Tim Harding
Reviewed at: Garrick Theatre