Utopia

Six
actors in clown make-up and white costumes simper and spout clichés
and gobbets of received wisdom by Aldous Huxley, Samuel Beckett
(“Dance first, think later”) and, er, Adolf Hitler, for what
seems like an eternity of torture devised for addicts of children’s
television or Godspell, or possibly both.

The
second half is marginally better than the first half, and the second
half of the second half much better than the rest, mainly because the
writing acquires some texture and heft at last in Zoe Cooper’s
study of a decrepit Labour MP (movingly done by Pamela Miles)
fencing with the attentions of her bizarre carer (the extraordinary
Laura Elphinstone). This is then contrasted with Simon Stephens’
amusingly ideal world litany of blue skies, independent coffee shops,
nice music and a global return to good old letter-writing.

But
honestly, the show has the intellectual gravitas of a collection of
Christmas cracker mottos and the theatrical excitement of a nursery
school exercise for the under-fives. The actors soon discover there’s
not all that much to say about Utopia anyway, and the sketches veer
off into unfunny game shows, dire domestic face-offs, a pointless
incantation of 1852 office laws and a desperate chorus of “I’d
like to teach the world to sing” (and drink Coca-Cola).

Tobi
Bakare, Rufus Hound and Sophia Myles make up the numbers (or
recite them, at least) with David Whitaker bravely plying the
keyboards and even more bravely shedding jokes such as, “I like to
take my tea with two lumps – my wife and my mother-in-law”. The
peeling grey science lab of a set, where the cast are allegedly
sorting through all the hopes and plans we have for Utopia, is by
Lucy Osborne. My hopes and plans include finding the first bus
home.