The Little Dog Laughed

Douglas Carter Beane’s excruciating Broadway import The Little Dog Laughed – supposedly driven by a desire to update the Rock Hudson story – has been devised in the first place here by director Jamie Lloyd as an excuse for Tamsin Greig to bawl at the audience for a couple of hours, striking poses that would make even the sainted Beatrice Lillie, let alone the Statue of Liberty, blanche with embarrassment.

As the agent, Diane, she wants to railroad a deal in favour of her client, Rupert Friend’s over-tanned new star Mitchell, in the wake of an awards triumph at which, for some obscure reason, Greig starts wittering on about Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and dropping hints about mobile phones.

The plot curdles round this faux Pirandellianism when Mitchell’s telephone male prostitute, Alex (Harry Lloyd giving the only bearable performance of the evening), is thrown into a quandary over his sexuality by letting work get in the way of his affair with Gemma Arterton’s drop-dead gorgeous Ellen; who is, herself, shopping with another boyfriend’s credit card.

Is Alex gay? Will he have sex with Mitchell? Will they remove their underpants? Can Mitchell keep a boyfriend on the payroll as a Pilates instructor, or a literary adviser? Will the stage lighting by Jon Clark suddenly turn green again for no apparent reason, or back to purple? Will Tamsin Greig strike another pose, or will I strike her first?

These are the questions that litter an evening of mounting comedy froideur, poor writing – “Eurasian?” “I think he’s anyone’s Asian” – and gross self-indulgence. Soutra Gilmour’s white classical design mixes antiseptic hotels and dining rooms with front cloths and a front stage where Greig twitters tediously through the “fourth wall.”