Two gentlemen in dressing-gowns and nightcaps peer out nervously from behind a curtain. They appear reassured that they have an audience, so they emerge, resplendent now in rather garish outfits. They are Godfrey and Cecil, and they engage in a quick-fire interchange that parodies that habit certain Englishmen have of conducting an entire conversation where responses to questions are batted back before the question itself has been fully delivered: ‘Would you…?’ ‘Oh yes, absolutely.’ This dialogue is delivered with startling rapidity, and is accompanied with strange gestures and facial expressions. These are no ordinary Englishmen.
The idea of creating an eccentric pair of chaps who parody a certain type of Englishness is not new. Back in 1938 Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes featured supporting characters Charters and Caldicott, as played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne. Their comic obsession with cricket became so popular that the same characters appeared in subsequent films and in radio and TV programmes. In The Establishment, Dan Lees and Neil Frost have given this idea a surreal twist. Godfrey and Cecil have mannerisms and a style of speech that are quintessentially English, but cranked up to an extreme level. These characters would not be out of place in one of the more bizarre sketches from Monty Python. The emphasis is upon wild parody rather than more sharply focused satire, though there are some merry swipes at Article 50, and at the trading of arms with Arab nations. The latter issue features in a sketch preceded by a splendidly daft sand dance, pace that old music-hall act, Wilson, Keppel and Betty.
I enjoyed The Establishment, but at times the material was too diffuse and too repetitive, and there were sequences that relied a touch too heavily on audience participation. Last night there was a period in the first half of the show where Lees and Frost appeared to be working a little too hard to get the desired response. However, once they got into their stride there was some real fun. The Establishment is somewhat uneven, but at its best it is gloriously silly. The latter part of the show included a very satisfactory moose hunt, requiring a brave volunteer moose. Even braver, perhaps, was the young lady who offered herself for the ritual sacrifice of a virgin – you get a very superior kind of audience at The Wardrobe. ★★★☆☆ Mike Whitton 8th March 2017
