There is a trend afoot, no doubt encouraged by the success of the likes of  The Play That Goes Wrong , for the kind of deconstruction we find in cooking competitions on the telly. That is to say take an old favourite, pull it apart to see what it’s made of and then serve up the bits as a kind of homage to the original. Genres that are highly stylized are a popular target for comic reinterpretations. Parody has a long and distinguished theatrical history with progenitors no less than Aristophanes using it to great effect. However, when wanting any satirical thrust, the form can sink easily into pastiche with nowt to hold it together.

Crimes, Camera, Action, sets up camp in the film noir world of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and their ilk and is set in the seedy side of Hollywood during its ‘Golden Years’. With more twists than a cheese straw, some narration is inevitable in order to keep the audience up to speed with plot development. However narration, when not, as in noir film, delivered as a voice over whilst action is happening on screen, tends to slow things down. And the kind of hard-boiled, world-weary and often introspective narration we find in the best of the genre is hard to pull-off in a more declamatory stage setting, even when it’s done for laughs.

There are plenty of little set pieces, which in themselves are well executed and funny. It’s clear to see the (acknowledged) influence of Kneehigh in the clever opening tableau with gumshoe, Stan Shakespeare (Feargus Woods Dunlop – also credited as writer) falling as if from height. It seemed to promise a lot and yet the vibe didn’t quite carry through to any great purpose.

There are plenty of verbal gags of the kind loved and polished by TheTwo Ronnies:  words in the wrong order that give different – often risqué – meanings to what was intended and then simple ambiguity based on names like Hu , Eye, Watt and Hey. Simple hackneyed stuff that nevertheless manages to raise a cheap laugh.

Director, James Farrell, keeps things moving at a decent pace given the limitations of the script and need for narration. The many scene and character changes are cleverly handled and the four actors all look comfortable in their various skins.

The great irony is that when something actually did go wrong and the actress involved did have to do some quick thinking it got the biggest laugh of the evening. I hope they took note.  ★★★☆☆   Graham Wyles    27^th August 2021