Triple Espresso
Like the “Triple Cinnamon Peruvian Monkey Foot Latte” one of its cast sips, Triple Espresso is a mighty strange blend.
A Minneapolis to London transfer (how often do you see that for starters?), albeit via numerous America cities, San Diego and Ireland, the show started life back in 1995 when three solo performers – pianist Michael Pearce Donley, comic Bob Stromberg and magician Bill Arnold – got together and decided to write something they could perform as a trio.
The resulting piece finds a pianist, comic and magician – named, respectively, Hugh Butternut, Bobby Bean and Buzz Maxwell (geddit, coffee lovers??) – who reunite for the first time in 25 years to heal wounds, reminisce and re-enact, ultimately, the horrific scene that precipitated their disbandment.
None of these fictional performers are endowed with tremendous talent, which is the bedrock of the humour for the show’s original creators and stars who appear in this West End season. The problem is, even if you’re only pretending to be unfunny and unskilled, you run the risk of coming across as … well, unfunny and unskilled.
Here, despite their eight-odd years working together, the Triple Espresso team appear under-rehearsed and ill-at-ease. And their hokey Midwestern jokes frequently fall dangerously flat with a (dare I say it?) more sophisticated London audience. What’s more, though done with good intentions, the attempts to localise the piece, with references to the Royal Albert Hall, Swindon and Skodas, fall even flatter.
That said, there are some hysterically funny setpieces to be enjoyed, not least the Zairean disco medley, the shadow puppet play (something I never thought I’d see on a West End stage) and the dance of the diminishing flash cards which was the trio’s legendary undoing. A fan of the woolly mystique of horoscopes and tarot readings, I have a soft spot too for magic tricks, even when leavened with faux ineptitude. More of that please and Billy Joel’s singalong “Piano Man”.
I should also say for the record that, though small on the night I attended, the audience were very boisterous and enthusiastic – a good thing for a show reliant on public participation and gentle embarrassment. Maybe they were “highly caffeinated”, too.
– Terri Paddock
