Changing Rooms
The Drayton Theatre
29th November 2013

★★★☆☆

When the cat's away, the mouse will play. Only in this case, there are plenty of cats, they're the ones doing in the playing, and the poor mouse is running around ragged trying to stop all the games from ever colliding. Oof, that could have been neater but still, you get my point, right?

In Marc Camoletti's Changing Rooms, a very important government official called Bernard (Kevin Marchant) pretends to be called to the south for a business meeting which can't be put off until Monday. His wife, the glamorous Jacqueline (Maria de Lima) pretends to head north to spend time with her parents. And completing the circle of untruths, faithful maid Nana (Jill Stanford) also pretends she's off to spend time with her relatives. In fact, that weekend, all three sneak back to the house, Bernard bringing his mistress, the naive Brigette (Anna Lukis) and Jacqueline her toyboy lover, Robert (Milan Alexander). Chaos, as they say, then ensues.

The set is simple, but striking and well thought-out. A black and white checked floor evokes thoughts of chess, all characters involved in a complicated game, with Nana doing her best to control the outcome, moving the pieces and always trying to think six steps ahead. In addition to all the doors that are normally present, another three have been set into the back wall. There's certainly a sense of coming and going.

De Lima's words are tinged with a continental brogue, and her clothing haute couture, albeit more of the 80s than the present day. By contrast, the other woman, Brigette, is styled like Stacey Solomon, given a similarly distinctive English accident, and the sort of questionable red cropped military jacket that only Cheryl Cole nee Tweedy now Tweedy might fight, fight, fight for. It's a deliciously subtle move from director Anna Ostergren. No one comes out of the story smelling like roses - every character is guilty of something - but many jokes are hung on Brigette, who is without a doubt the most anglicised character. It's a clever little nod at the play's French origins, and the classic Manche divide.

The translation by Jonathan Holloway and Anthony Wood is very natural, the only hints of the play's source language in passing references to Parisian streets and French supermarket chains. The dialogue isn't particularly intelligent - and for this, Camoletti must shoulder the bulk of responsibility - but there's enough for the actors to work with. And you never really need an amazing script for a farce to work - just lots of frantic running around, opening and closing of doors, and good timing. Changing Rooms has all of those things in spades, in fact, the timing in many places is perfect, with one character entering immediately after another exits. There's a lot to commend Ostergren for.

However, the main criticism of Changing Rooms is that it need more work on the sound design. When watching the show, intuitively it feels like a live TV sitcom - no bad thing - but there's none of the canned laughter or incidental music. There's something missing, one final coat of polish and the silence becomes deafening. Perhaps annoyingly for Ostergren, if she hadn't managed to do so well at all other aspects of this play's direction, this easily fixed flaw wouldn't have stood out as much.

Disregarding the sound (or lack thereof) the cast and crew come very close to doing something excellent with a fairly basic comedy well translated. Whether you're missing the dearly departed Frasier or yearn for something unchallenging but classically French in style - a tasty beef bourguignon of a play - you could really do worse.

Changing Rooms ran from 26th November to 21st December 2013 at the Drayton Theatre.

Nearest tube station: Gloucester Road (Piccadilly, Circle, District)