In the Club

Synopsis

Hapless MEP Philip Wardrobe has a busy day ahead of him, balancing his less-than-irreproachable political career with his attempts to start a family. As he prepares for his girlfriend to fly in from Kettering for an afternoon of fertile frolics, his plan to be voted President of the European Parliament is foiled at every turn by unpredictable colleagues: uncouth Yorkshiremen, irate Turks and amorous Frenchwomen... to say nothing of the mysterious man in the linen cupboard. Sit back and enjoy the door-slamming shenanigans as Philip’s political and personal life collide in a Strasbourg hotel suite, with hilarious results.

Our Review:

3 August 2007

You could accuse Richard Bean of many things, but you can’t accuse him of leaving anything out. His “political sex farce”, In the Club, is so crammed with every cliché and every possible gag of the genre, and its cast of actors so desperate to please the audience, that it forgets, on the whole, to be funny.

I admit that I mostly enjoy farce when not laughing my head off. There is far too much anxiety about the plot and fascination with the pay-offs to allow any sense of relaxation. But because he's innately funny anyway, in a John Cleese meets Alan Bennett sort of bumbling way, James Fleet as Philip Wardrobe, a hapless MEP holed up in a Strasbourg hotel with ambitions to become President of the European Union, has his moments.

Fleet is a quick actor and, as the mayhem mounts, he never loses his rag, though his jaw drops quite often. So do his trousers. His lever into the top job is a shady deal – a case full of Euros, to be precise - with th...

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Latest User Review

Simon Fowle - 1 March 2008:

A lame, second-rate Cooney-style farce littered with appalling and largely incomprehensible accents and notable for a lack of decent one-liners. The second half may have been better - but I did not stay to see it!...

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