The Double Act at Arcola Theatre – review

“Comedy is not supposed to be nice,” snarls Billy Bash, one half of a disbanded Eighties comedy duo, and the man once crowned ‘Britain’s Third Most Offensive Comedian’.

But despite boasts of going viral on TikTok, Billy’s bigoted brand of humour is falling out of favour, his star’s been on the wane for a while, and the last night of his not-so-glittering UK tour finds him in the crumbling seaside resort of Saltmouth.

Also crumbling is Billy’s former comedy partner Clifford Biddle, who has spent the years since his own public disgrace ended ‘Biddle and Bash’, stewing and spiralling. Hours before Billy’s final show, the pair reunites in Cliff’s decaying maisonette with the help of his unnervingly peppy neighbour, Gulliver.

At the heart of the play are questions about comedy. Is it supposed to be uncomfortable, nasty even, as Billy insists? Is it a vital form of free speech? When does something stop being funny, and start being dangerous?

These are explored through the sensibilities and secrets of the three men, but also through a sly testing of our own comedic tastes. We’re offered gags that run the gamut from groan-inducingly puerile, through lewd and intolerant, to downright cerebral.

And for audience members of the right generation, references to Biddle and Bash’s contemporaries (Rod Hull, Keith Chegwin, Bobby Ball) not only locate the pair precisely in the comedic canon, but force us to consider what we used to laugh at. And how much has, or hasn’t, changed.

Nigel Betts is particularly strong as bullying Billy. Physically menacing, despite the middle-aged spread straining the seams of his white tuxedo. And proudly unrepentant. The type of man who might physically abuse his wife (he has, we learn) then dismiss it all as female histrionics.

Nigel Cooke has a harder gig as Cliff, part fragile recluse – both terrified by and in awe of Billy – and part absurdist clown, whose increasingly wild antics reveal the depths of his mental health struggles. Cooke takes much of it in his stride, but is scuppered in the second act by Mark Jagasia’s script, which steers Cliff towards cliché.

Edward Hogg is all forced frothy laughs and discomforting side-eye as the enigmatic Gulliver. But is let down by a backstory which starts to beggar belief.

In fact, a fair bit of the plot’s denouement nudges implausibility. There’s accident after tragedy after disaster, not to mention the business with a boa constrictor which may or may not be imaginary. And explaining it all pumps the breaks on the show, after a witty and well-paced first act.

Perhaps it’s all part of Jagasia’s genre-bending – this dark comedy also flirts with tragedy, absurdism, gothic horror, perhaps even religious allegory. And Oscar Pearce’s buoyant direction guides us through it all with as much energy and clarity as possible.

But however smart a play’s social commentary (and this play’s is certainly smart), however courageous its exploration of genre, it is still plot that delivers the final punchline.

And perhaps this plot’s biggest struggle is with its stakes: Billy’s potential downfall. When he’s about to play a rickety, end-of-pier pavilion in a grim seaside resort, does he really have that far to fall?