Review: ‘Dressing Gown’

By Andrew Cartmel

Theatre at the Tabard

2 Bath Road

London,

W4 1LW

🍷🍷🍷🍷 – 4 out of 5 glasses of water. No time for Coffee!

Dressing Gown is a little theatrical gem! It’s the story of Theatre Director Ash (Jamie Hutchins) who just wants to get out of his dressing gown and put some clothes on. But he keeps being interrupted. His producer Dan (Ryan Woodcock) comes round and confronts him about his alleged affair with his girlfriend. Playwright Jenna (Freya Alderson) comes over to vent her frustrations about actors improvising and not reading the lines as she wrote them, and Layla (Rosie Edwards), the play’s leading actress and Dan’s girlfriend, wants to know why Dan bought her flowers. Misunderstandings, innuendo, paranoia, and a parade of awkward but witty conversations ensue.
Theatre-folk are always fun to watch and the script and situations are broad enough not to feel like an ‘in-joke’ (I also, when I first started the Maverick Theatre Company, used to spend a LOT of time in my Dressing Gown!)

Under Jenny Eastop’s deft direction, the four main characters bring Cartmel’s script beautifully to life. Comedy is very hard to get right, but this modern-day farce hits every beat, and not a moment is wasted. The dialogue is full of misunderstandings and one-liners, and its quirky humour takes us back to the classic era of farce, without the now-perceived sexism that used to occasionally permeate those older offerings. This one act farce zips past in barely an hour and ten minutes.

Dressing Gown is a new and modern classic. So get dressed and get down to the Tabard Theatre in Chiswick.

DRESSING GOWN at The Tabard 10 – 27 July 2024

Written by Andrew Cartmel
Directed by Jenny Eastop
Box Office: https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/dressing-gown/

Cast:
Jamie Hutchins as Ash
Ryan Woodcock as Dan
Rosie Edwards as Layla
Freya Alderson as Jenna