Real Classy Affair

Real Classy Affair at the Royal Court Upstairs (Ambassadors)

It seems fitting that, on the night I attended what s being hailed as this year s Closer, Closer author and director Patrick Marber was in the audience. Marber must be asking himself the same question many critics have been voicing in recent weeks – can Nick Grosso challenge the much-lauded chronicler of modern relationships and London life?

Certainly, few if any plays can boast the same calibre of hip young cast members which director James Macdonald has assembled here. In addition to Liza Walker, who appropriately made her stage debut in Closer and plays the solitary female role in Real Classy Affair, there are film stars Joseph Fiennes (brother of Ralph) and Nick Moran (of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). The on-stage composition is reflected in the stalls where gorgeous urbanites congregate and, highly uncharacteristic of the West End, the average age dips well below 30.

Nice-but-dim Stan (Moran) and his missus Lou (Walker) are thinking the unthinkable, defecting from North London where they were born and raised to Streatham, south of the river. The move is vehemently opposed by Stan s mates who gather of an evening in their local to discuss a surreal spectrum of issues from Rod Stewart to love and the meaning of life.

Certain mates have an ulterior motive for their resistance, namely the little wifey. The competition between Billy (Fiennes) and Tommy (Jason Hughes), the group s two figureheads, escalates from a tussle for the extramarital attentions of Lou and the right to host the couple s leaving do to an all-out power-struggle where the two match each other menace for menace.

The stylish but dark elements of the script are wonderfully rendered in Rob Howell s design – the identical, satiny zoot suits of the men, the revolving dais which spins the characters around like their conversational spool, the figure-eight stage which transforms from public to private settings.

The glittering cast delivers its stylish best as well. Performances all round are superb, the actors savouring the sharp and witty dialogue of ‘small , council estate characters who talk big. This is most evident in the all-male pub scenes where the old friends gab, guzzle and marvel at their friend Joey s (Jake Wood) incredible ability for high jinx. By comparison, the countering scenes in the married couple s home fall flat. Lou may do a nice line in sexy iron-handed sulks but her patter doesn t keep pace. Her flirtations only serve as a foil for exploring the real relationships at issue here – the friendships that bond and break men.

So then, is Real Classy Affair the next Closer? Not really, but then, if you ask me, it doesn t want to be.

Terri Paddock