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Life as bitter farce
MARY CONWAY applauds a study of comedians in whose cheap prejudice the tenets of the emerging political right are crystal clear
double

The Double Act
Arcola Theatre, London

THE eponymous “double act” depicted in Mark Jagasia’s long-awaited second play at the Arcola is a comedy duo, so we might be forgiven for expecting an evening of light entertainment. The central thesis of the work, however, is far more grim. 

The action — or rather the repartee — takes place in one seedy room, in one seedy maisonette in one seedy seaside town somewhere “up North.” Here a long-disbanded comedy twosome meet again after many years apart. They are reintroduced by neighbour Gulliver who — for reasons that become apparent — has invited Billy to visit Clifford whom he describes as unwell. 

The reunion is tricky and any suggestion that the two reunite for a grand come-back — or at least for a token turn in a down-at-heel, end-of-the-pier shack — is fiercely resisted by a still-on-the-circuit Billy who glories in his given title of “Britain’s Third Most Offensive Comedian.”

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