Though the body of work left by PG Wodehouse is vast, his fans' insatiable desire to retreat into his world of japes and jests amongst the middle classes is such that there's plenty of room to roll out some of his stock characters, throw them together and see what happens. And that's what Simon Godziek and Rob Groves have done in The Unrest Cure (at Pentameters Theatre until 26 November).
Ernest (Math Sams) is worried about growing old too quickly, marking time in the hotel he runs with his spinster sister Cecilia (Eva Gray) in sleepy Chickerell. Ernest's friend James (Tom Yeates, who acts and sings charmingly) suggests an unrest cure - a rest cure in reverse, if you will, with action packed days rather than inaction packed days - which tickles the fancy of earwigging and spirited Virginia (Lucy Middleditch, sexy and just a bit scary) and her sidekick brother Charlie (Mark Donahue). They hatch a plan to create mayhem at the hotel and effect the unrest cure. Cue mistaken identities, love affairs ignited and reignited, friendships tested and a Bollywood dance routine carried off with a studied sensual seriousness that makes it all the funnier.
It's all ridiculous of course - Wodehouse's admirers expect nothing less. They also expect witty wordplay, references to high culture amidst the farce and everything to be for the best in the end. They get all that and plenty of laughs too from a splendid cast, who are all but upstaged by the late entrance of what might be the Prince of Wales (Steven Blake) whose comic turn is worth the entrance fee alone!
Leonie Scott-Matthews, a fine busybodying maid in this production, founded Pentameters Theatre in 1968 and it's been above The Horseshoe pub in Hampstead since 1971. She describes it as the best kept secret in London and she might just be right about that. This new play based on familiar material certainly should not be kept secret - so take a walk up the narrow staircase and enter another world, more gentle, more funny and more silly than ours - and all the better for it.
