How to Be Happy

Synopsis

We all want to be happy. We all know what it feels like. But what if it keeps slipping through our fingers? Paul is a former happiness guru. As a young man he wrote self-help books and appeared on the television as 'Mr Happy'. But now his marriage has failed and his career as a serious novelist is faltering, while his ex-wife has remarried a wealthy advertising executive to the dismay of their troubled teenage daughter. Paul is now concerned about the state of his health, the size of his mortgage and the monthly payments on his iPhone. Mr Happy is not happy. But surely if anyone can unlock the secret of perpetual happiness, he must be the man?

Our Review:

10 October 2011

Written and directed by David Lewis (who has written six plays for the Orange Tree previously), How to be Happy covers the well-worn thematic ground of the modern obsession with materialism.

Paul (Paul Kemp) is a former 'Happiness Guru' who is now a divorced, financially hard-up middle-aged man who blames consumerism for much of the world’s ills. Emma, played by Kate Miles, is his ex-wife and is fed-up with dealing with her ex-husband and her new husband who feels “lost”, whilst coping with a new baby as well as a teenage daughter.

Unfortunately, what could be an interesting meditation on the problems of materialism is let down by an unsubtle script. Lewis seems to think that he needs to shout his message that 'capitalism is bad' in various guises throughout the play for it to be understood. It is patronising and smothers any attempt at a storyline.

There are moments of humour though, and [Kate ...

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Latest User Review

Max Kershaw - 7 November 2011:

I saw ‘How To Be Happy’ on the last night. Initially, after having read WOS’s review I wasn’t going to. This is one of the better plays I have seen. Funny, well written, food for thought subject matter and relevant. Yet you’d think going by Katherine Graham’s review that the event was a waste of time and money. It’s one thing for a review to deliver an honest appraisal of a play or film, quite another to be dismissive of its many virtues and instead focus on the few things that don’t work. Such an attack is not only disingenuous but journalistically incompetent. Rather oddly the review took the time to mention something as trivial as one of the characters playing ‘Angry Birds’ – as if it was the wittiest reference in the play - but failed to mention the often scintillating dialogue, sardonic humour and high jinks farcical moments that amused and delighted the audience more effectively. To simply refuse to give credit where it is due to the rich layers of the piece (that wasn’t just about the writer ‘shouting’ an anti-Capitalist diatribe) is insulting and ungenerous. There were so many insightful and quirky moments – such as an unexpected ‘coitus interruptus’ incident when one of the main characters, about to indulge in mutual bodily chocolate smearing, breaks off and enquires if the choc bar is Fairtrade. For a reviewer not to even care about the impact of their words and the effect on box office potential is doubly ironic when you consider that without a well attended and thriving theatre scene, they wouldn’t be able to make a living. Max Kershaw BBC World Service Radio reporter ...

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