Noel Coward Theatre.jpg

Noël Coward Theatre

  • Theatre | West End
  • Covent Garden
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Time Out says

Expect a broad programme of productions at this long-standing, popular Covent Garden landmark. Originally known as the New Theatre, the tribute to playwright Noël Coward was paid much later in the theatre's history – though a young Coward did manage to present one of his own plays, 'I'll Leave It to You', on the theatre's stage in 1920, while several of his hits have been presented there in more recent times.

More typically host to limited runs of plays in recent times, you have to go back to 2006-9 to find its last real long-runner, the raucous puppet musical ‘Avenue Q’. However the hit Broadway musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ – due at the end of 2019 – will be hoping to make a good go of it.

Details

Address
85-88
St Martin's Lane
London
WC2N 4AU
Transport:
Tube: Leicester Square
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What’s on

The Comedy About Spies

4 out of 5 stars
Following in the vein of 2016’s The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Mischief Theatre – they of The Play That Goes Wrong – are now aiming their slick brand of ever-escalating theatrical farce at the spy genre in this West End premiere. When a top-secret file is stolen by a turncoat British agent, a deeply mismatched pair of KGB agents and a CIA operative and his over-enthusiastic mother collide in pursuit of it – along with an over-the-hill actor and a young couple – at the Piccadilly Hotel in London in swinging 1961. General chaos ensues. Writers and original Mischief Theatre members Henry Shields and Henry Lewis mine plenty of daft comedy from spy staples like bugged radios and improbable gadgets while paying homage to a decade in the UK rocked by the revelations of double agent Soviet Union spy rings. It’s low-hanging fruit, of course, but ramped up by Mischief Theatre’s trademark ability to spin seemingly minor mishaps into total comedy meltdowns. Director Matt Dicarlo handles these set-pieces and Shields and Lewis’s penchant for fast-moving wordplay deftly, allowing us half a knowing wink before whisking us on to the characters’ next blunder. He’s greatly aided by David Farley’s set design, a colourful cartoon of ‘60s London. A split-level cutaway of the Piccadilly Hotel is a neat visual shorthand for introducing us to the characters and snappily showing us the chaotic consequences of a bugged radio being moved between rooms. A talented cast know their mission, steering...
  • Comedy
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